Jon Snow: Long Reach
by honoroconnor
Summary: [Modern Real World AU] 17-year-old London boy Jon Stark is shocked to learn that the body of his older brother, Robb has just been washed up dead in the Thames. He soon discovers something even more disturbing - Robb had been working undercover and was likely murdered in the line of duty and that the Targaryen crime family might be involved. Real summary in CH1.
1. Dead Hero

_**JON STARK makes two shocking discoveries in quick succession. One: his brother, Robb, has been working undercover. Two: Robb is **__**dead**__**.**_

_**Jon refuses to believe that his hero elder brother killed himself. And there's only one way to find out the truth: follow in his footsteps.**_

_**There's a job: to infiltrate the notoriously violent Targaryen family.**_

_**There's a girl: the boss's youngest child – beautiful, sexy, quite dangerous.**_

_**Before long, Jon is up to his neck in Targaryen family business… and sinking fast.**_

…

_**And before we get started, I would just like to point out some characters will act differently unlike their actual versions and the relationships are not the same either. So Jon is actually a Stark and not related to Dany at all.**_

_**Enjoy**_

…

_**Jon's P.O.V.**_

"We found him face down in the mud at Long Reach."

It was only 7 a.m. and you rarely see a copper in tears so early in the day. Even off-duty.

My mum, Catelyn, looked wide-eyed at Theon Greyjoy as he tried to get words out, but his face collapsed like a balloon that was leaking, and the sentences quickly turned to sobbing, snotty gibberish. Mum pulled Theon in by the arm. He dragged his sleeve across his eyes to try and staunch the flow of tears and get control of his voice.

"He's dead. Robb's dead."

My mum had known the instant she'd opened the door, and so had I. The feeling had been growing between us, unspoken, for days on end. She had just needed to hear the words and then she began to cry, throwing herself back against the wall and banging her head almost rythmatical against the wallpaper.

"He was down river. Place called Long Reach. Near Dartford Bridge. Looks like he might have jumped off." Theon looked at me through wet, red eyes. "I'm so sorry," he said. "Sorry mate, your brother was a hero." His voice then dissolved into sobs again.

The emotion hit me like a fist to my stomach, but no tears came. Mum and Theon were clinging to each other in the hallway. My younger brothers sisters, Bran, Rickon, Arya and Sansa all eventually came down to see what was going on. I told them, and they immediately joined in on the bawling. But I didn't. I pushed past them instead, through the open front door and out into the wet street.

I ran across the road and over the railway bridge up to the park, past a couple of hardcore joggers and speeding commuters heading towards the station. From the empty park I looked out over the misty outskirts of London, my breath coming in heavy gulps. The gulps quickly turned to sobs and a loud, animal wail forced itself out of my throat.

The realization hit me that I would never see Robb ever again; breathe the smell of his black leather jacket when he hugged me, catch the beer on his breath and feel his stubble on my cheeks.

Never again.

I looked across at Canary Wharf, twinkling with early morning lights, and on to the Dome and the sluggish grey flatness of the river as it widened out on its way down through Kent. Looked out at the stretches of mud where they had found _my_ hero, my brother.

…

Robb's funeral was a month later. No fuss and bother: just a simple service at a crematorium with a few words from a vicar who had never known him.

Our old man didn't even turn up, however. Although possibly he didn't know Robb was dead. Mum had kicked our dad, Ned, out two years ago, when I was 15-years-old. He was always pissed, drifting from job to job, until eventually he went a bit nuts and became violent. Robb had had a big fight with him: beat the crap out of him until he'd left for good. I'd only met him a couple of times since, shabby and unshaven. Once he turned up to a family wedding; the other time I saw him asleep on a bench in Lewisham. I hardly knew him.

Robb had to step. He always looked out for me.

It had taken them that whole month to do the post-mortem and all the paperwork. It was a nightmare, not just because of the way that Robb had died, but because officially it had been difficult to prove that he ever existed. Because, it seemed, Robb Stark had worked on something a bit hush-hush, with various false identities, and it was hard to work out that he actually was the real Robb Stark. It made my head ache. He was Robb. I knew he'd be light on his toes, but his aliases were new to me. A secret he'd never shared.

And then there was the coroner's verdict to swallow.

Suicide.

It struck me at the funeral that I didn't know _much_ about my brother than the vicar did. Robb was a decade older than me, for a start; he'd always been at home when I was small, but I was just 'the kid'. He wasn't quite easy to know, but I knew how intelligent he was. That he was the first in our family to go to university. He'd done a History degree in Essex, or somewhere prestigious. I also knew that around that time he'd got into big trouble with drugs, organized raves and house parties, and had got caught knocking out cannabis to other students in his campus.

According to mum, Robb had made a deal with the police, working for them as a trade-off for a sentence. Poacher-turned-gamekeeper, feeding back information here and there, giving them leads to drug deals, illegal raves, that kind of thing.

A man named Tyrion Lannister had helped sorted it out for him.

Tyrion, in a way, had always been there for us, as far back as I could remember; the loyal family friend. He was plain clothes or CID – as for as I knew – and he'd drop round from time to time, just to make sure Mum and I were OK after the old man went. He'd be there to reassure Mum whenever Robb went on the missing list for a few weeks.

I knew that Robb hadn't been whiter than white, and I knew he could be difficult. I just couldn't understand how he had got to a place where topping himself was the best option.

I couldn't understand and I was angry about it. How could he do it it to me… to Arya… to Sansa, Rickon, Bran… to Mum?

…

We drove back to the house in the hearse. Heavy rain drummed on the big, black roof and our breath steamed up the windows, protecting us from the stares of passers-by. I embraced Mum close to me in the back of the car. Suddenly, she felt very small, as if the month grieving and preparing for the funeral had really shrunk her. She'd bought sandwiches and snacks from Marks & Spencer. They didn't look anything like the ones you see on the telly: _These are not just sandwiches, these are M&S funeral-pack sandwiches, dried-up and curly in the central heating._

They didn't seem to put anyone off, though. Tyrion, Theon and some of Robb's mates tucked inn, racking cans of bitter and laughing and talking in loud voices that disguised their grief.

I had felt very alone.

There was no one else of my age there. Plenty of people gathered around Mum, making the right noises, but nobody seemed to know what to say to me. Tyrion must have noticed me standing there on my tod, looking pissed off, and he came over.

"Beer?" he said, passing me a can.

I tipped it at him and took a swig, lukewarm and metallic. Despite his height, Tyrion still shuffled awkwardly, trying to fit in appropriately.

"Been back to school yet?" he asked.

I shook my head. I'd never been a big fan of the education system and I'd had my fair share of trouble at school. I figured that being fairly average in a South London comp wasn't going to secure me a six figure City-boy salary or a degree in rocket science. As soon as I could, I wanted to be off.

"Well, you've got a pretty good excuse for skiving off a bit, I'd say."

"I'm not going back," I said.

The previous year, I had finally stopped mucking about, muckled down and done a few GCSEs. It would be fair to say I hadn't broken any records, but I had the basics under my belt. I'd done all right in maths and English, got decent grades in drama and French. But ICT was my thing. Technology came as second nature to me. I'd gone back to do and an A level in it, but school was really doing my head in now.

Tyrion stared at his shoes. "You certain? Bright young man like yourself?"

"I've had enough, Tyrion," I said. "It's not been a great year. I figured… I thought I might get a job."

I could almost see the cogs turning in the little man's head. "What sort of thing?"

I shrugged him before taking another swig, "Dunno. Something with computers or something."

There was a moment of pause.

"I've been thinking about you over the last couple of weeks now," Tyrion said. "How old are you now?"

"Seventeen," I replied. I felt a bit defensive. Where the hell was this leading?

Tyrion considered a moment, "Listen, I've got something of Robb's I'd like you to see." He went over to where his briefcase was sitting on a chair and pulled out a padded envelope. "Here you go, old son," he said. "And please don't show this to anyone, it's still a bit sensitive. Just have a look and let me know what you think."

He took a card out from his pocket and handed it to me. "When you're ready, give me a bell." Then he gestured for me to crouch then where he grabbed me into a bear hug. When he released me I could see the tears pricking his eyes.

"I might have a job for you," he said.

…

Once everyone had left, I emptied out the envelope onto the bed.

There was a certificate and a small box. I opened the box and inside was a medal, bright as if it had been made yesterday. It was silver with the Queen's head on one side and a crown on the other, with the words _The Queen's Gallantry Medal_. I unfolded the certificate. It had a royal seal at the top and underneath it declared that the medal had been awarded to Robb Stark, "for acts of great bravery."

Tears began to blur my eyes.

Tyrion was right. Robb had been a hero.

I held the medal in my palm as if somehow it would connect me to my brother – to explain – but I felt nothing. I carefully folded up the certificate and put the medal, warm from my hand, back in its box.

I kicked back on the bed and closed my eyes. It had been a long day and my brain was struggling to absorb this latest piece of information. I tried to sleep, but my mind was running to fast. I kept rewinding and going over the past month – the way my life had changed, the gloom that had infected the house and settled like a damp, grey blanket over me and mum. She hadn't spoken much for days and just sat for hours on end, staring at daytime telly with the curtains drawn; watching naff celebrities giving people's house makeovers or changing their lives for a grand. My relationship with Bran, Rickon, and Arya, I felt, had started deteriorating. Sansa and I were still the same. Just constant bickering between us.

I pulled the thin duvet up around my neck and caught a whiff of my own smell. The sheets hadn't been changed for a month and that, added to the mess in my room, brought me up sharp. Unless I pulled my finger out and did something about it, we were heading for some kind of meltdown. I couldn't expect the old girl to snap to it and miraculously pull everything together. I wouldn't pretend that it was all happy families before Robb went, but losing him felt like we'd lost our anchor.

I finally began to drift off, but the very thoughts I was trying to banish from my mind just kept coming back: Robb playing football with me … all of us on holiday in Gibraltar … Robb sparring with me in the garden, grinning, telling me I was a loser who punched like a girl, before leaving himself open to a sucker punch and pretending to be knocked out, declaring me the champion of the world.

Every image seemed to be bathed in sunlight. I seemed to have blotted out the bits where Robb had come home looking starved and shagged, and had slept for days on end. Or the days when he prowled around the flat, doing nothing except smoking and peering out from behind the net curtains. Or, more recently, the times when he'd turn up, unexpected, pissed and talking fast, his hands shaking.

I remembered that holiday. About six years ago Mum had found us a place to stay in Brighton. It was a flat in a big Victorian house that smelt of old books and damp from being close to the sea. Robb had cooked us a fryup for breakfast every morning and we'd spent every day on the beach, swimming and throwing stones at Coke cans, which Robb sent up on the breakwater. I don't remember it raining, but it probably had.

Tyrion Lannister had come down for the night halfway through. He'd had some business in Camberley and thought he'd pay us a visit. He took us for dinner to a pub overlooking the sea where we'd eaten prawns and crabs, and I'd been allowed to drink cider. I remember Mum and the siblings being happy, with Robb a bit pissed and cracking jokes. To anyone looking in, we'd have looked like an ordinary family of seven.

Robb and Tyrion had stayed on in the pub for another hour while Mum took me back to the flat. I remember seeing the two of them, huddled together over a table as we left, their talk suddenly dark and serious as they sipped whisky chasers.

Tyrion went back the next day, but after that we ate out every night. Robb paid for everything; said he'd had enough of eating tinned soup and toasted sandwiches in the holiday flat. He took me out fishing on a boat and to the waxworks museum, which had a chamber of horrors showing people being tortured with hot irons and a moving skeleton playing a church organ. That really freaked me out.

Of course, when I got back to London I acted to my mates at school that drinking cider and looking at torture was part of my daily life with Robb. I'd big him up to them until he was at least ten feet tall with a punch that would fell Mike Tyson.

Happy days.

…

I woke up about four. It was still dark and the duvet was twisted around me in a knot. I was thinking good thoughts for a second, caught up in happy memories. And then the reality came back to me; a thump, low in my guts. I tried to go back to sleep, but lay with my eyes open until it became light. I got up and took a dump, trying to ease the know in my stomach, then stood outside the door of the small bedroom that Robb had stayed in when he was home.

Neither Mum nor I had even touched the room since he'd gone, let alone had the heart to chuck anything out. I pushed the door silently across the carpet and stepped into the early morning light that streaked through his window. Another dawn that Robb would never see.

There were no surprises. It was what is was: Robb's room. The giant sofa bed that he used to sleep in was folded up and boxes of his things still littered the floor. It smelt of Robb. I shut my eyes, took a deep breath and he could have been in the room with me. I flicked through the stack of CDs: mostly classic seventies rock dinosaurs and eighties bands that I'd never heard of.

I searched through the boxes: weights, some lads' mags, a glass bong. Nothing personal, just stuff. Nothing that told me any more than the little I already knew about my brother.

I opened the wardrobe, put my face into the clothes hanging there and inhaled leather jacket and faint after-shave, and he came back to me again. I searched his pockets and found nothing but empty fag packs and train tickets to and from New Cross.

And then I found a plastic wallet, tucked inside one of his jackets. There was no money in it, just another train ticket and card. It was a membership card for a club in New Cross, The Harp Club. It had a picture of a harp and a shamrock printed in green. There was a photo of Steve a couple of years ago, with a mild beard. I remembered him growing it too. Mum hated it. Robb had laughed though – said it could get the girls in his English class.

Next to the photo was his name. Not Robb Stark, but another name. Steve Palmer. Another identity.

I shut the bedroom door and went to the kitchen to make some tea and toast. I stared at the card again, and tried to read the blank, passport-photo look on Robb's face. It was giving nothing away. I glanced at my watch; it was nearly nine. Another day about to drift away, so I made a decision. I picked up the phone and dialed a number.

"Tyrion Lannister," came the voice on the other end.

"It's me," I said. "You mentioned a job."

…


	2. Worth It?

…

I don't really know what I was thinking when I walked into Tyrion Lannister's office. I hadn't got a clear idea of what his job was about. I guess I was more interested in asking him exactly what my brother had been up to.

Getting there was the maddest bit about it, to be honest. He have me an address in town near Leicester Square and when I found it, it turned out to be a music shop with. In fact the whole street was music shops, with instruments hanging out of the shop doorways. I checked the street number again. It was definitely right, but the shop was chock-full of electric guitars. There was a lion insignia on the front door similar to that I saw in the card Tyrion had given me. This must've been the place. I guess.

I walked in. A bloke with a red beard and blond hair wearing a Jack Daniel's T-Shirt was noodling on a guitar. He looked up and nodded. I nodded back and he stopped playing.

"Hey," he said. "Tormund Giantsbane. How can help ya?"

"I don't know if I'm in the right place," I replied. "I'm looking for Tyrion Lannister?"

This Tormund Giantsbane fella grinned and put down his guitar. He went to an area of the wall that was covered with paper packets of guitar strings, found a handle and pulled a door open.

"Down the end and up the stairs," he said, pointing through the doorway.

I said my thanks before he nodded and went back to fiddling his guitar. I walked up the stairs and came to another door marked _Lannister's Model Agency_. I raised a brow, praying to myself this was some sort of joke. It was the only door there was, so I pressed the buzzer and was let in. An extremely good-looking, red-haired girl glanced up as I walked in. She smiled. She looked to be in her early twenties and was wearing barely any makeup. Pictures of other hot girls were framed on the wall behind her.

"Hi," she said sweetly, with a strong Aberdonian accent. Oh Jesus, I had this thing for Scottish women. Probably because of the accent, and especially when they say dirty things with the accent.

"I think I've made a mistake," I said, quite embarrassed. "I'm looking for Tyrion Lannister?"

"Is he expecting you?"

"I think so, yes."

The girl stood up from behind her desk. "I'm Ygritte. Ygritte Wildling." She held out her hand and I shook it. Her handshake was surprisingly firm. "Come this way."

She walked across to another door and pressed a code into the lock. The door opened and she ushered me through before heading back to her desk, closing the door behind.

Tyrion's office was small and unremarkable, save for the stacks of CDs that lined every shelf and covered every surface. Posters for recently forgotten bands covered the walls and a sign over Tyrion's desk read: _Westeros Music Publishing_.

"Have a seat, boy," Tyrion said. "Coffee?" He filled two grubby mugs with water and instant coffee and handed me one and sachet of sugar. "Milk's off, I'm afraid."

"I'm fine," I said. I looked around at the crowded walls. "So… what's all this record-business stuff, Tyrion?"

He gave a look, "It's a front. I'm sure you guessed that."

I hadn't, actually. But I nodded anyway.

"A front for what?" I asked. "I thought you worked in a police station."

Tyrion laughed, "What? 'I arrest you in the name of the law'?" he asked me in a comedy policeman voice. "Truncheon-meat sandwiches, Letsby Avenue and all that?"

I shrugged.

"Alright," Tyrion said. "I don't work for the police _exactly_. Neither did Robb. We operate somewhere in the gap between the police and the more covert government agencies. We're a self-contained, intelligence-gathering department."

"What about the model agency next door? The music shop?"

Tyrion put a finger to his lips. "Too many questions, boy. All in good time. So what did you think about the stuff I gave you?"

"I never knew. About the medal. Did Mum…?"

Tyrion shook his head.

"What did Robb do?" I asked. "I mean, to earn it?"

"He cracked a terrorist cell up near Willesden," Tyrion explained. "They were planning to blow up half of Oxford Street. Would have killed thousands. Robb went in by himself. We created a gas scene in their block of flats and he went in disguised as a British Gas employee and wired the place right under their noses. He even hacked their computer and found the explosives under the sink. That takes some balls when there are three Al Qaeda suspects in the room while you work. Robb was good. Then he went back in and bust it single-handed, before the heavy mob piled in and shot two of them. High-risk strategy. He really put his cock on the line for that one."

I felt my chest swell with pride.

"Did he… did he get the medal from the Queen?" I asked lamely.

He shook his head. "Robb couldn't go to pick it up from Her Maj. It would've made him conspicuous. That's the trouble with this job. You don't get the glory, you just have to be content when you're doing some good. You can't even tell your family, because any information could put them in danger. Robb never let on much, did he?"

He hadn't. Now I wished I had asked more.

"It's work for a single man, like Robb … or a man like yourself. Not too much in the way of dependents to worry about."

I felt proud to be referred to as a man. At school they had still been giving me the boy treatment. I hated it.

"So Steve Palmer was his alias for this work?" I asked. Tyrion looked taken aback. I pulled out the membership card from The Harp Club and lay it on the desk in front of him.

"Where did you get that?" he asked, rattled.

"It was in one of Robb's jackets."

"Bit careless." Tyrion sighed. "That was part of the trouble. Robb was getting a bit sloppy. I think the stress was getting to him."

I had remembered Robb sitting in our lounge only a few weeks ago, smoking like a chimney, chewing his nails down to stubs and drinking numerous cans of beer. For breakfast. Fucking. Breakfast.

"That level of stress is dangerous." Tyrion explained.

"That's why I was worried when he went missing this time."

"Does going missing usually include topping yourself?" I asked.

"He was under a lot of pressure," he said, finally. "Quite a few people were on his back."

"So now he's 'gone missing' forever, what happens?"

"Well, that's where you come in, old son. If you're up for it, you might be able to help us by doing a bit of background work."

I felt fear bubbling away queasily in the pit of my stomach. What was he going to ask me to take on? The worry must have shown on my face because Tyrion stood up and reached to put his hand on my shoulder.

"Listen, Jon. If you have any doubts about this whole thing, we can forget this conversation ever happened and just carry on as we were. No problem."

"I want to help." The fear was still gnawing away, but I knew that the shame of not honouring my big brother's memory would be far worse.

"Good man. I knew you would." Tyrion squeezed my shoulder. "A young guy like you can get to places where people like me would stick out like a pile of shit in a swimming pool. I'm glad you're on board. Now, there's a couple of people I'd like you to meet."

…

We walked out of Charing Cross Road and across Trafalgar Square. If there was a straight line to be walked, Tyrion never took it. He would cross from one side of the read to the other, dipping into bookshops and leaving by another door; taking little side alleys and backstreets, cutting through Soho across Chinatown then behind the National Gallery and out into side of the square. It was as if he was trying to shake someone off with every move he made. I struggled to keep up.

"Get used to it," he said with a smile. "It's good practise. Means you can 'disappear' when you need to."

We stepped into a pub tucked away on the south side of Trafalgar Square. Tyrion seemed to know the barman, who served him a large Scotch without waiting to be asked. I just had a cold bottle of beer. Tyrion scanned half-empty bar and downed his whiskey quick.

"C'mon," he said. We had been in there longer than five minutes. I felt most of my beer and followed Tyrion through the back of the pub and into a yard surrounded by high, grey buildings spattered with pigeon droppings. Steam billowed from the back of one of them and half a dozen of men chefs' outfits barely looked at us as they stood around, smoking their fags. Tyrion climbed the metal fire escape that zigzagged up the back of another of the buildings and I followed him. We arrived at a steel door and Tyrion swiped the lock with a card. We came into a corridor: white and lit with fluorescent tubes. It smelt of school dinners. Opposite us was a heavy brown wooden door: Tyrion knocked.

"Come in…"

The room was large and sparsely furnished: a worn carpet, several lumpy-looking chairs and a big, battered desk. Not exactly built for comfort. The single dirty window looked out at Admiralty Arch that led down to Buckingham Palace.

The man behind the desk was reading something, lit by a lamp with a green glass shade. I followed Tyrion in and the man looked up. He must have been in his forties. His face was quite lined and his hair quite grayish. Quite handsome. He looked like he always the girls.

"Hello, Tyrion." He sounded pretty posh.

"Jaime," Tyrion replied. He gestured for me to step forward. "This is Jaime Lannister. My brother."

Jaime Lannister stood up and extended a hand. I saw a gold signet ring and cufflinks on a striped sleeve that shot out from a well-cut suit. Rolex Submariner diver's watch on his right wrist. I notice that stuff.

"How d'you do?" His voice sounded of royalty, the handshake was crushing too. His eyes looked cold and cat-green and locked on to me.

"I'm good. Pleased to meet you."

I'm sure I saw him suppress a smile as he flicked a glance towards Tyrion. "Sit down," he said, gesturing at the chairs in front of his desk, and Tyrion and I sat down. Jaime observed me for a moment. "You're very young."

"Yes, but I'm growing out of it," I quipped. Or at least I tried.

Jaime glanced at his dwarfed brother again. Had he delivered him a clever bastard? I decided to answer his next question straight.

"I'll be honest," he said. "I think you're too young. _Legally_ you're too young to be working for us, but I'm following my brother's hunch here. I knew your brother too, of course. I'm sorry for your loss." Jaime paused, twisted the signet ring on his finger. "Tyrion here thinks you've got some of what Robb had."

My feelings were still mixed. But I was chuffed that Tyrion had talked to Jaime and put me in the same bag as my brother.

Jaime looked at the notes on his desk and thought for a moment. "You look good on paper," he said amusingly, pushing them across the desk for me to look at. On three sheets of A4, my life was mapped out in detail: my date of birth, the appendix operation I'd had when I was five, my schools, my exam results and sporting achievements. Then the more personal stuff: a list of two or three girlfriends – the name of a long-term one I'd split up from last year; her names was Val. Finally, pictures: me as a kid on a bike; sweating in boxing shorts holding up a cup; in judo kit getting my brown belt.

"Where did you get all this?" I asked, looking at Tyrion.

"Child's play." He smiled back at me.

"And what do you think this shows about you?" Jaime asked.

"It looks pretty straightforward to me," I replied. "I've not been in any trouble."

"You're all alone in all the photos," Jaime pointed out. "All the sports you participate in are one on one."

I was surprised. I'd never thought about that ever in my life, before. I had mates, but I was happy enough with my own company. If my family was a pack of wolves, I preferred to be a lone wolf. Essentially a ghost.

"I guess I'm just not a team player," I said after a while.

"Well, that may be no bad thing as far as we're concerned." Jaime picked up a phone on his desk and punched in an extension. Although he said nothing more to me, I felt I passed some sort of test.

"Can you come in, Bolton?" Jaime barked into the phone.

I took an instant dislike to the tall, rather sinewy man who entered the room a few seconds later. He must have been the same age as Robb but looked as if he had just murdered someone in cold blood. Or perhaps he did? His skin was smooth, sallow and tight on his square-like face. His hair was short and curly, and his lips thin. He stood behind and looked down at me without cracking a smile.

"Ramsay," said Jaime, "My brother, Tyrion, you know, and this is…"

He looked at my details in front of him. Used to the name that I was about to lose. The man nodded at Tyrion and then looked back at me.

"This is Ramsay Bolton," Jaime introduced. "Ramsay here will be your case officer."

I wasn't sure what a case officer was exactly, but it looked to me as if Ramsay Bolton over here was none too pleased about being mine. Maybe he was and just refused to smile or something like that.

"Bringing us children now, are you, Lannister?" Ramsay said to Tyrion. He allowed himself a minimal movement that passed for a smile. Jaime held up a finger to silence him: it was clearly a discussion they had already had.

"He's made of the right stuff," Tyrion said, coming to my defence. "He can look after himself. Besides, we're not going to send him out into the wilds on this one, are we?"

At that moment, I felt I needed some input into this conversation. "Where _are_ you going to send me exactly?"

"First things first," Jaime began. "Before you do anything, you'll need to look at this." He pushed a form across the desk to me. A glance at the heading told me that it was to do with official secrets. "You'll need to sign it. And you'll need to get used to this."

He passed me a brown envelope, which I emptied onto the table. There was a passport and various other pieces of ID: a credit card, a driving license, gym membership. Each piece of documentation had my photo on it and a name. Jon SNOW.

"Is this my new alias?" I asked. Jaime and Tyrion nodded.

"So you won't forget it when you're in the field," Ramsay said sharply. "Will you?"

"Why? Where am I going?" I pressed.

"We'd like you to make friends with a girl," Jaime said, smiling. "Shouldn't be too hard since you had girlfriends in the past, should it? Her name's Daenerys Targaryen."

I felt relieved that I wasn't being sent into a terrorist hotbed like Robb. "So where do I find this Daenerys Targaryen?" I asked.

Jaime pushed a photo across the table. It was a picture of a very pretty girl with surprisingly very white hair. I couldn't help smiling to myself though.

"Should be nice easy one for you, Jon _SNOW_," Tyrion said, using my new surname for the first time. "We'd like you to go back to school."

…

Things moved fast in this world. As soon as I'd said yes and signed on the dotted line, Jaime shook my hand and I was in. Up to my neck. If I'm honest, what choice did I have? To say no and creep around endlessly for the rest of my life, wondering if I could have done something useful, ashamed that I hadn't honored Robb Stark's memory in some way? It wasn't an option.

When we stepped out into the bright day in Trafalgar Square it seemed like a new London for some reason: everything looked super-real, sharply detailed in the sunlight. I felt as if everyone was looking at me: people on buses, men in hats, road sweepers. Everything looked like a clue. I held out my hand. It was trembling, as if all my nerves had been wound up a notch. I felt Tyrion's firm grasp on my shoulder.

"Feel strange, doesn't it?"

I nodded.

"It's a big leap," he added. "I remember what it's like. The paranoia. You get used to it but, I tell you what, it's a valuable tool. Keeps you on your toes. You trust no one and look for signs on every street corner. Nine times out of ten, that suspicion pays off. That's how it works on this game."

Tyrion hailed a black cab, which squealed to a halt in front of us. I got in while Tyrion gave the driver my address, then he sat down down beside me. We rumbled down the Mall past New Scotland Yard and all the ministry buildings. The cab turned left over Westminster Bridge and as I looked across at Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, I suddenly felt part of it all. Scared and proud. I had never really felt part of _anything_ before. I felt like I was in any popular spy movie like James Bond or Mission: Impossible.

My eyes darted left and right as we crossed the Thames, watching every car that passed, checking the registration of a motorcycle despatch rider as he pulled up alongside us.

"Blimey, you are jumpy." Tyrion chuckled. "Take a deep breath and relax."

"Does this really get better, Tyrion?" I asked, trying to make myself comfortable in the cab seat. "I feel a bit sick." Behind us Big Ben chimed two and I realized how much I had already crammed into the day.

"It does," Tyrion reassured me. "I promise. It becomes second nature, a part of you."

My stomach gurgled as if in reply. Nerves, probably.

"You must be starving. Let's get some lunch, shall we?"

He got the cabbie to stop at a drive-through on the Old Kent Road. A quarter-pounder with cheese, large fries and a half litre of Coke. The food seemed to settle my stomach a bit and the sugar hit from the Coke helped. Soon we were burrowing back into the grotty, leafy backstreets of South London and I felt safer. We drew up Mum's.

Home again.

The old girl made us both a cup of tea, then Tyrion talked to her in the kitchen. They spoke quietly, but every now and again I could hear Mum raising her voice in protest, then Tyrion calming her again. I plonked myself in front of the TV and watched a repeat of _Friends_. The familiar, attractive faces, the colours and the studio laughter made me feel secure. Whatever was thrown at the the characters, their problems always got sorted by the end of an episode. No matter what the scriptwriter had dreamt up for them, they all had each other in the end. Sometimes I wished I had the safety net of their scripts. And Rachel as a girlfriend. Or maybe Phoebe. I don't know.

After a while, Mum came in and sat beside me on the sofa. Her eyes were red and she looked at me with a downturned smile and her lip trembled again. She hugged me close and I could feel the sobs shake her entire body. She had known this would happen, and she didn't want to lose another son. Tyrion had told her it wasn't safe for her and my siblings here now that I was involved too. It had been risky enough when Robb was around, and his death was bound to draw some attention. My background had to be concealed, all traces of my previous life as Jon Stark had to be brushed over. Mum and the siblings were going to stay with her sister in Stoke-on-Trent, and I could go up and see her whenever I wanted. Tyrion explained that he had found me a flat. And he would take me there tomorrow. Tyrion ordered a takeaway curry and the three of us ate around the kitchen table. The telly was still on in the background, but we managed a few laughs. I kissed Mum goodnight and she squeezed me tight, like she was never going to let go, and I went up to my room, stuffed tikka masala and poppadoms.

But I couldn't sleep that night. My mind was racing and my belly was full and close to bursting. I opened up my iPhone and pressed on Spotify, and I scanned through for something I could relax to, which was nothing of the sort: Led Zeppelin, Iggy Pop, Bowie, Gorillaz. Tracks that spanned twenty years or so, each one bringing back a different memory of Robb – a particular weekend or a Christmas past. Tunes I had grown up hearing in the background or from behind a closed door. I was wearing one of Robb's jumpers and as I took it off, I caught that faint smile of him again.

I don't believe in ghosts, but as the tunes washed over me I realized that if you keep enough of someone – their smell, their favourite food and the music they loved – then you can almost re-create a sense of them. You can feel them in the room. I could feel Robb here with me, watching me, protecting me.

I looked up at the ceiling of the bedroom that had been my boyhood refuge for as long as I could remember, every crack and cobweb familiar and comforting. And it occurred to me that, after tonight, I was leaving my boyhood well and truly behind.

And I was hoping it would have been all worth it…

…


	3. Jon Snow is his Name

…

Tyrion was picking me up at ten. I had gotten up early and packed my bags, still feeling pretty sick. I don't think it was the curry, perhaps it was just my nerves. I had kept waking up all through the night, staring at the ceiling, worrying. Mum cooked me eggs and bacon, but I didn't have much of an appetite. I forced it down just to please her and washed it down with a mug of strong tea. When Tyrion arrived, Mum did her best not to make a scene and so did I; she told him to look after me, or he'd have her to answer to. Tyrion promised he would, then we both kissed her goodbye and left. I had said goodbye to Arya, Rickon and Bran. Said I was gonna 'start working' which made Tyrion stifle a laugh. Sansa, well… just a nod from her and I to her. There was a sly smile on her face though, probably she was just glad she may not see me as much. But I digress. I could care less about how she feels.

The rush hour was pretty much over, but New Cross was still clogged up with traffic as we cut down into Deptford. The cars were mostly scruffy vans on local business, or shiny Beemers with blokes flexing their muscles and their stereos. I couldn't help but noting faces, wondering what sort of work other people were doing, and got steely stares in return.

I took note to myself that I would have to be more subtle in the future, I thought.

Our driver turned down towards the river, humming along to a terrible tune on the radio that was beginning to get on my nerves. He pulled up outside a block of flats along the riverfront: a new development, faced in steel, glass and wood. To one side there was a scrapyard piled high with the rusting wrecks of old cars. On the other side, a second new block, shiny and metallic, that stretched upwards, with a neat line of glossy, prestige motors lined up outside. It was like a new world colliding with the old, and it wasn't clear which was winning: whether the shiny and new was taking over the scrapyard or whether the scrapyard was rotting the new stuff with rust and corrosion, dragging it down to its level.

"Welcome to your new home." Tyrion presented the block to me with a wave of his hand.

"You what?" I said dumbfoundedly.

"Your flat." He laughed. "But you won't have much company I'm afraid – the block's half-empty. It was built for all the yuppies and City boys and girls who were supposed to be flooding this area."

"So where did they go?"

"They either didn't exist in the first place, or they've gone skint in the meantime…" He grinned. "Merchant bankers," he added with a gesture of his wrist.

Tyrion punched in a code on the heavy steel and glass door. There were no numbers on the buttons, but they made different tones.

"No numbers?" I asked.

"No. It's more secure without. You'll have to remember the tone sequence, but don't worry just yet. Early days." The doors clicked open and we walked across a cool, marble-floored hallways towards a steel lift door. It hissed open.

"This is your safehouse," Tyrion explained, pressing the button for the fifth floor. "The people who buy this kind of gaff like their security, so you'll be safe as houses, so to speak. It's quiet down here. Just be discreet and don't get too chummy with your neighbours. You probably won't see much of them anyway. They tend to go to work early and come back late, and none of them are families."

He passed me a piece of paper with the PIN tone sequence for the outside door and another number combination for the flat. The lift stopped at the top floor.

"Memorize the numbers, then eat that," Tyrion said.

The look on my face made him laugh.

"Only joking, mate." He slapped my leg. "Just don't leave it anywhere that's obvious."

I pressed in the code to open Flat 501 and walked through the door. The trapped air hit me in the face and everything smelt new. Tyrion flicked on the lights and I felt a tingle of excitement as I took in the big, open space. There was a comfy-looking sofa and a couple of leather armchairs. A thick, modern rug covered the floor between them, and there was a glass coffee table with a snack of books and a fruit bowl. There was a large, framed film poster on the wall: James Bond – _Casino Royale_. Tyrion saw my reaction and chuckled.

"My house-warming present," he said. "A bit of a joke."

Underneath the poster was a desk with a silver Apple laptop on it. Tyrion lifted the lid and booted it up. In the toolbar at the top, my new name was already entered: Jon SNOW. The screen saver was the same as the view from the window that ran the width of the flat; the Docklands skyline, Canary Wharf towering in the middle. Tyrion clicked on my name then _Guest Account_ and the whole screen swivelled around, revealing a second desktop. Tyrion typed in another password: 26dec86.

I frowned. How was I going to remember all these codes and numbers?

"26dec86, _Snow_… get it?" Tyrion asked.

I nodded.

"It'll be your password for all the work you do for us, OK?"

I nodded again.

"This desktop is for all the confidential stuff. It has a separate email, web browser, everything." He clicked on my name again and the Canary Wharf skyline spun back into view. "This desktop you can do with what you like. Just please make sure it looks like the desktop of an average seventeen-year-old bloke."

"Sure." I was pretty chuffed with the laptop. I'd only had shared use of the clunky old Dell at home and this was state of the art, thin as a wafer and sleek as a Ferrari.

"You can fill it up with rap music and porn, if you like, but just remember, both sets of emails and web histories will be under surveillance, I'm afraid.

I must have blushed a little because Tyrion looked out of the window and coughed, sorry that he had embarrassed me.

"Anyway, don't get comfortable just yet. Dump your stuff and bring your overnight bag."

He helped me take my cases into the bedroom, just off the main living area. The bed was vast and white, more than twice the size of my bunk at home. It looked like a cool hotel room, with bedside lights fixed to the wall either side and another picture over the bed. This was a piece of abstract art, the poster for an exhibition that had been on the Tate Modern a couple of years before. There was a sliding door that led out onto a balcony that faced directly over the river. I slid it open and stepped outside. The midday sun was bouncing off the futuristic city opposite, and upriver I could see the outline of the Gherkin and the dome of St Paul's. Below me, the river ran by, slow and murky, making pools and eddies around the slippery green legs of the small jetties that stuck out from the riverbank. Despite the unfamiliarity of my new place, I felt a feeling of warmth spread through me and wanted to do nothing more than throw myself back on the big white mattress, switch on the widescreen TV at the end of the bed and chill out for the rest of the day.

Tyrion, however, had different ideas for me. He looked at his watch and made noises about getting going, so I put my stuff in the overnight bag while he packed up the laptop and, five minutes later, we shut the door of my new flat behind us.

…

We past through Greenwich, past the park and the National Maritime Museum then through the Blackwall Tunnel. The industrial landscape north of the river was pretty foreign to me. I'd had no reason to go there before. Eventually, the driver swung off left into a slip road and we drove into a run-down residential area, the streets lined with Indian groceries, kebab shops and Mediterranean delis.

"Where are we, Tyrion?" I asked. I looked out at the mix of people spotted around the streets.

"Dalston," he said.

Although it could have been no more than a few miles from where I lived, I'd never heard of Dalston before. It felt different from south of the river. Don't know why. Just not my territory perhaps.

"Rough as arseholes round here," said Tyrion. "Not like the leafy avenues and boulevards of New Cross and Peckham," he added.

We drove on through Hackney and Islington, then up the Holloway Road until sings began to signal the North Circular. "So where's this place we're going?"

"Out towards Beaconsfield," Tyrion raplied. "But the less you know about it, the better. Should have blindfolded you."

Tyrion seemed to be enjoying himself today with his lame jokes. I suppose he was trying to make light of my nervousness. We sat in silence for the remainder of the drive. The building looked like a school. It stood at the end of a long drive with modern blocks dotted around it. We were checked by security then waved up to the main building where the driver parked in a bay marked _Staff_. At a reception desk we signed in and a woman in a uniform gave me a badge in a plastic sleeve.

It didn't feel exciting or glamorous, it was more like signing on the dole or getting a tetanus jab. The walls were covered with government posters and health-and-safety warnings. My shoes squeaked as we walked down a corridor with a polished lino floor. No one acknowledged us, or gave any sign that they knew Tyrion as we walked out of the main building and across a yard into one of the modern blocks. Sitting behind a desk, surrounded by computers and piles of files and papers, was Ramsay Bolton. He didn't look particularly pleased to see me. Nor was I.

"All right, Bolton?" Tyrion asked cheerily. Ramsay gave his sly smile and looked at me.

"Better get started," he said. "We haven't got all that long."

"I'm going to leave you in Ramsay's capable hands," Tyrion told me, and I suddenly felt the urge to grab hold of him, to keep him there, as if I were a kid on his first day at school. Tyrion patted me on the back. "I'll check up on you in a few days."

"Few _days_?" I asked. "How long will I be here?" I was shocked; here I was thinking it was just overnight.

"A week," Ramsay said. "Just about long enough to knock you into shape."

…

For the rest of the day, Ramsay had me in front of a computer, doing IQ tests and tests of initiative. He checked my results and timed my responses, but it was hard to tell how well I was doing. One test was to remember a cover story and the details of a new identity, not my own. Ramsay gave me exactly two minutes to read the cover, then ten seconds to answer each question. I clicked the mouse and turned the page on the computer:

_**YOUR COVER STORY:**_

_You're stationed in Transeuratania. You're a vegetarian and the food isn't especially good in Metropoligrad – unlike the coffee, which costs less than a shilling for a pot at the best hotel. Your name is Victor Belmore. You were born on 14 December 1973 in Skegness. At A level, you gained an A in Geography, an A in French and a B in Economics. You have two sisters and a brother._

_You studied Geology at university and now work as a management consultant for a company called British Coal Associates._

…

I read the cover story again and again, and tried to put pictures to the words – like visualizing a carrot for the vegetarianism. I knew Skegness because we'd stayed at Butlins there, so I formed a picture of the holiday camp in my mind. I did have two sisters but _had_ three brothers, now two… I tried to remember the exam grades… A for Geography… A in French… Time up.

The page disappeared and a map of the imaginary country of Transeuratania popped up. Numbers were pinned to the map and I could answer the questions in any order… I clicked on number one.

_**1\. What is you name?**_

_A: Bill Velmore_

_B: Victor Belmore_

_C: Viktor Biltmore_

Easy one. I chose B as the clock ticked down from ten. Three seconds passed. Question 2…

_**2\. What is the currency of Transeuratania?**_

_A: Transeuratanian rouble_

_B: Transeuratanian dram_

_C: Transeuratanian shilling_

I remembered the coffee. Pressed C. Next question…

_**3\. What is your favourite meal?**_

_A: Mushroom Risotto_

_B: Duck à L'Orange_

_C: Roasted vegetables with Lamb_

Got to be risotto – I remembered the carrot image and clicked on A. Next question…

_**4: What were your grades at A level?**_

Once more the clock ticked down from ten at the side of the window. The letters began to swim in front of my eyes.

_A: ABB_

_B: CAB_

_C: AAB_

I nearly pressed A. No, it was C. I was beginning to sweat a bit…

_**5\. What company are you working for?**_

Oh shit. An acronym. More letters. I know it was something to do with Britain and coal, but which one…?

_A: CBA_

_B: ABC_

_C: BCA_

I'm sure it was B. Or was it C? Time was running out. I pause too long and press C. I was certain I was right… Moving on.

_**6\. What was your degree on?**_

_A: Geology_

_B: Geography_

_C: Management_

Simple one: A. Next…

_**7\. What's your brother's name?**_

Easy.

_A: John Belmore_

_B: John Velmore_

_C: Bill Biltmore_

I click on A. If _my _surname was Belmore, then my brother's surname had to be the same, obviously. I could here Ramsay chuckle. This question was probably meant to be a easy trap.

_**8\. What's your date of birth?**_

_A: 13 December 1974_

_B: 14 December 1973_

_C: 27 December 1972_

I clicked on B.

"Well done," came Ramsay's voice from the other side of the office, where he had been noting my answers and timings on his own computer. I looked up in time to see him mime an imaginary pistol with his index finger and thumb, aiming at my head. He made metallic clicking sound as if his gun was empty. "You survive," he said. "You got all eight. Simple wasn't it? Most usually get five or six out of eight. You were quite slow in some; even one slip you could have blown your cover so keep that in mind."

"Sorry," I murmured, but quite relieved it was over. "Just a bit nervous at times."

"You don't have to apologize to me, you little twat," said Ramsay, jokingly. Then he went quite stern. "I'm not the one who'll be getting the bullet in the head or who's being filmed while he's carved up by ISIS and posted on the Internet. This was just one part of the process. You still have a long way to go."

…

Ramsay Bolton was true to his word. I may not have taken a liking to him in the beginning, but I was starting to. Probably due to the way he was coaching me. All the memory games, tests, random questions, going over my cover story again and again:

"What's your name?"

"Jon Snow."

"Date of birth?"

"28 January."

"Born?"

"Lewisham Hospital, London."

"Both dead. Dad cancer, mum too."

"What sort of cancer did she have?"

"Breast."

"Any brothers and sisters?"

"None."

"School?"

"St George's, New Cross."

"Middle name?"

"None."

"Brother's name?"

"I…" Damn, fell for the trick question again. Jon SNOW had no brother or sister. Idiot. I had a feeling that Robb was here in the room, telling me he did this before and struggled. Who was I kidding, he probably didn't struggle at all.

"You hesitated." Ramsay said quietly but reassuringly after, "Let's try again."

And on he would go, asking questions about my childhood; about pets I never had and holidays I never even went on. He kept going until I began to believe all the stories myself. I could even picture my imaginary childhood and house that I never lived in.

They had created a new me.

There were other tests as well, physical ones, on the treadmill and in the gym. Pulse rate, blood pressure, recovery time. There was often a woman hovering around – Ramsay just called her Myranda. Said that I would be seeing her around. She just seemed to be in the background, observing. Not me though; she had her blue eyes all fixated on the Ramsay. I was quite glad about that, because I had no interest in her whatsoever.

…

On the evening of day four, Ramsay took me out to the pub, somewhere in the country near wherever we were. He brought me a pint and we sat there, sipping Guinness and crunching handfuls of nuts. He didn't say much at first, but then he seemed to relax a little. After a while he looked at me and babbled on about Myranda flirting with him constantly and how he had tried to say no to her numerous times before giving into her at one point. He then went on to say how I was 'going to be a great inclusion to the group.' Since this was coming from him, I took it as a compliment. Then he asked if I played pool. I said I did, so we played best of five and he absolutely thrashed me.

"All you need to do is improve tactics," he explained. "Think about the game a bit more instead of just knocking balls all over the table. Set up traps. Make things a bit awkward for your opponent."

I took that in mind. The following morning, Ramsay introduced me to the martial arts instructor, who happened to be the same guy with the Jack Daniels T-Shirt from the music store, Tormund, who said much the same. I had done a bit of judo and boxing as a kid, but this guy, I'm telling you, had told me I couldn't fight my way out of a wet paper bag and that his wife could do better. That aside, his advice was never to start a fight. To walk away if at all possible but, if I had to engage, make sure I got the upper hand quickly – and by whatever means. He showed me me stuff that would never go down in judo or the boxing ring. Streetfighting tactics, like how to punch and ram your thumbs onto the other bloke's eye, how to bring the heel of your hand under someone's nose. How to hit with your fist going forward, and again with a slashing motion on the backstroke. To stun with an elbow in the solar plexus or the temple; a knee to the heart. To stab someone in the windpipe with a ballpoint, to garrote them with pen and a shoelace.

In his hands, he said, a ballpoint pen was all he would need to survive in the department of dirty tricks. He went into some detail about how much pain the sharp end of a pen would cause if rammed into someone's ear, how fatal it would be if you hammered it home with the heel of a shoe. Equally, if you pushed the pen or even a sharp pencil into the eye hard enough, it would burst through the orbit and penetrate the brain.

Nice. Dangerous things, pens.

Tormund was quite large, but he could move quick, and very tough. He shouted at me as I punched the heavy bag and threw hooks into pads that he held up. He bawled at me as I worked the speedball and insulted me as he dropped medicine balls on my tensed stomach. He never called me by my name, let alone my fake surname either. The only name he called me was a four-letter one I would never have used in front of my mum or any woman at all.

I held a temper as he chased me around a muddy assault course, screaming at me as I skinned my knees and elbows crawling across corrugated iron sheets. I didn't flinch as I cut my legs on brambles and broken glass, scraped my back to ribbons crawling under barbed wire fences. And I didn't complain when he loaded me up with a backpack full of rocks and told me to run round the whole circuit a second time, twice as fast.

I went round again, his voice roaring in my ears the whole time. In fact the more he shouted and screamed, the stronger I began to feel. The pain dissolved as my determination not to break increased. I threw myself across ditches and up rope walls, the rocks digging into my back and making me yell with angry resolve. My hands burned down to the raw flesh as I swung up on a rope across a ditch crammed with shopping trolleys, shit and sump oil. At the other end, I smashed my face into a wall, making my nose bleed and my eyebrow swell instantly.

When I made it back to the start – in double-quick time – my breath was hot and rasping in my dry throat, and blood, sweat and drool poured down my face. So when Tormund called me a wuss who wasn't fit to lick his boots, let alone kiss his arsehole, I finally lost it.

I shrugged off the backpack and launched myself at him, letting off an explosive punch that I dearly hoped would spread what was left of his nose across his face. He caught my fist in a huge hand and sidestepped my blow, twisting me, causing me to lose my balance and fall back in the mud. I jumped straight back up and went for him again, this time anticipating his move and landing a smacking right-hander into his mouth, surprisingly splitting his lips. This seemed to anger him a little and I was suddenly on the receiving end of a right backhand that caught me on the neck. It felt like being whacked with a tree trunk and I went down again. I was on my feet in an instant and at him with both fists when I saw his face. Through the blood trickling from his split lip, he was grinning from ear to ear.

Not taunting, but warm and friendly like he was in the music shop.

"Nice one, boy," he said. "You got balls of steel."

He put his hands up defensively to catch my punches I was about to throw, but the burning flames I had all went out of me. I dropped my fists and rested my hands on my knees, panting heavily, half laughing, half crying with pain, exhaustion and relief that it was over. Tormund patted my back and I spat dryly into the wet mud, a smear of blood mixed in the spit. From the corner of my eye I saw Ramsay approaching. His _lover_, as I liked to put it, Myranda was with him.

"How's he getting on, Giantsbane?" Ramsay asked.

"By God, I think he's got it!" He said in a mocking voice. Then, serious, "He's as hard as fucking nails, I tell ya. I think he'd have killed me if I'd given him _half_ a chance."

Myranda checked her stopwatch, raised her eyebrows and showed it to her _boyfriend_. Her face looked surprised. And so did Ramsay's.

"Never seen anyone do the course that quick second time around," Ramsay said, allowing himself a glimmer of a smile. "Well done, _Snow_. Let's get you to a hot shower and some dinner. We'll make a man of you yet."

…

I woke up the next day stiff with the pain in my bones. Every muscle and sinew in my body seemed to be screaming for help. I tried to roll over and make myself comfortable on the lumpy mattress, but whenever I moved, something else hurt. The sun was streaming through the thin curtain, so I knew I wouldn't get back to sleep. I swung my legs out of the bed, feeling my hips crack, and put my feet on the cold hard floor. Where I had been lying, the sheet was speckled with spots of blood. I looked down at the broken toenails and blisters on my feet, at the scratches that criss-crossed my legs, and suddenly felt proud that I had survived this for. Some inner strength had made me go the extra mile. I got to my feet and staggered across to the washbasin, found a couple of ibuprofen in my wash bag and swigged them down with cold water. I splashed my face and looked in the mirror. In just a few days I thought I appeared leaner and fitter. OK, my face was scratched and cut, and I had a black eye, but – perhaps it was just my imagination – there was definitely a new look of determination in my eyes. Hard as nails, Tormund had said. Balls of steel. I could handle whatever they threw at me.

The fifth day was different from the rest. Ramsay eased off a bit, only throwing the odd question here and there to make sure I was still quick off the mark. If he called me Snow, I jumped to it. I'd almost forgotten that Stark was my surname. It was like someone learning a foreign language in another country, I even almost began to dream as Jon Snow, and not as Jon Stark. Different dreams. Different places.

They gave me a crash course in driving. I knew the basics because I'd had a few lessons, but they me my test anyway and I was pretty chuffed when I passed.

The day after, Ramsay took me to a new part of the building. A quite stocky and young man called Samwell Tarly talked me through some of the technology I would need. Most of it was pretty basic: two mobiles, one an iPhone for personal use, the other a small Nokia, a hotline to Ramsay and his operatives. The iPhone had all the usual apps, but plenty of other extras like navigation stuff and an encoded keyboard I could use to send encrypted messages. This was top-notch gear, quite a few steps up from my T-Mobile pay-as-you-go.

I panicked, thinking I wouldn't know how to work it all after being away from it for a while, but Sam assured me I would pick it all up again in due course. He also instructed me to take out the SIM cards every night to cut down the likelihood of being tracked by anyone else. He gave me some shoes that had been adapted for me, so that if you lifted up the insole, there was a little hollow in the heel with specially cut slots for strong SIM cards and memory chips. There was also a USB stick that Sam said had the memory capacity of half a dozen laptops, so I could copy the whole contents of someone else's computer if I needed to. It slotted neatly into the back of the other heel and could be easily pulled without anyone noticing. He even stressed the importance of removing the SIMs every night.

Sam spent the rest of the afternoon explaining how to install spyware into someone else's computer, giving me a web address where I could download a bit of software that would track incoming and outgoing mall on someone else's account. He showed me how to install the download and activate it where the computer's user would never find it. He also backed up the software on my memory stick, so I had the spyware with me if I couldn't get an internet connection. Nice.

There was lots of other stuff I would have to learn in due course, Sam told me: code-breaking, surveillance techniques, lock-picking and the rest. After we'd finally been through the IT business, Sam hauled a briefcase up on to the desk.

"Time for a bit of fun," he said. "I know it all looks a bit Secret Squirrel, but some of it might be useful."

"A bit what?" I asked, laughing. "Secret Squirrel?"

"Secret Squirrel," Sam repeated, smiling. "He was a sixties cartoon squirrel who was a spy. It's a show my father made me watch."

I smile, "Do you still watch it? If you don't mind me asking?"

He laughed, "I still watch with my wife actually. _He's got tricks up his sleeve…_" Sam began to sing the theme tune. "_Most bad guys won't believe, a bulletproof coat, a cannon hat, a common hat, a machine-gun cane with a rat-tat-tat-tat!_"

He mimed the machine-gun cane, tapping his foot to make a rat-a-tat sound. I looked at him, fully amused. He even said his wife sings it with him. Suddenly there was a cough behind us.

"Glad to see you're having fun, chaps," Jaime Lannister said.

Sam spun round quick.

"Commander Lannister," he gulped, his mouth opening and shutting like a decked fish. "Yes, er, I was just showing Jon some of our surveillance gear, sir."

Jaime grinned and tapped the glass of his diver's watch. "Well, get on with it, man, we're running out of time. We've got to get Jon Snow over here kitted out yet, and I'm gasping for a drink. You'll be joining us later, of course, Jon?"

"Yeah, I mean, yes, sir." I didn't have a clue what I was to call of him. Of everyone I'd met so far, Jaime, for some odd reason, was the one who scared me the most. "Thanks," I added, and he left.

"Remember this; if in doubt, always call him sir," Sam offered helpfully. He rested the briefcase on the bench and opened it. The box of tricks included an ordinary-looking digital watch that could record up to eight hours of conversation in a five-metre radius. It had a push button that operated the stopwatch and also set off the voice recorder. There were also several magnetic tags that would fit inside the petrol cap or under the exhaust of a car to track it on a phone or a laptop. He showed me some small magnetic microphones that I could use to bug room. Said I'd be needing them pretty much from the off. I nodded, impressed. Sam snapped the case shut. "Boys' toys," he said, then tapped his nose with his index finger, "I think you have an appointment with the lady next."

Lady?

…

"Sorry I'm late, _Jon Snow_." Her hair was red and rugged, tied back to a ponytail, and she was wearing no makeup at all than when I'd last seen her. She wore jeans and a crisp, fitted white over a vest. My God, she was stunning.

"Ygritte," she said, holding out her hand. I remembered the firmness of her handshake and the direct look in her eyes. The beauty when she smiled.

"Yeah, hi. I remember," I replied. "From the _model agency_."

She smiled and raised an eyebrow as if she wasn't sure whether or not I was telling her a joke.

"Looks like you've been through the mill." She touched my cheek in a matter-of-fact way. I flinched instinctively, and she drew away. I cursed inwardly, wishing that she'd put her hand back and touch my face again. Hell, touch anything she wanted really. "I remember induction week well," she said. "I think that bloody sadist Tormund Giantsbane enjoyed putting me through it even more than usual, being the pervert that he is."

"So, you mean…?" The penny was beginning to drop. "You work as…"

"Yep, me too. You didn't really think I worked for that cheapo modelling outfit, did you?"

"Well I just…" I started to make excuses.

"Lannister's Model Agency," Ygritte squeaked in a sing-song voice, mimicking a receptionist answering the phone. "Can I help you?" She looked at me, questioning.

"Of course I didn't," I lied. "I knew it was a front."

Ygritte gave me the benefit of the doubt. "Help me in with these things, will you?"

I went to the door of the office and helped her carry a dozen stuffed carrier bags and a clothes rail full of trousers, shirts and suits.

"It's taken me all day, two parking tickets and a near lamping to put this lot together for you," she said, groaning in a way.

"How did you avoid the clamp?"

Ygritte then put her hands on her hips and looked at me, doing a pose while she was at it. "How do you think?"

"Feminine charm?" I tried.

"Yeah, right." She grinned. God, I was loving her grin. "Actually, I broke the traffic warden's neck with a single blow." She laughed, mimed a karate chop across my own neck, then started unpacking the bags. She pulled out T-shirts, socks, pants and sweaters, and stacked them on the table.

"These all for me?" I asked incredulously as the pile grew.

"We'll see what looks right on you and ditch the rest," she replied. She then considered me for a moment. "Hm, Gap's alright," she said, feeling the edge of the black hoodie I was wearing. "Nice and anonymous. But I think we want to go upmarket a bit and lose the skateboard labels."

"I like this Vans shirt," I said to her defensively. "I've had it for the longest of times.

"Well… it looks like you haven't taken it off for years," Ygritte fired back playfully. "C'mon, try some of these on."

She first handed me a navy-blue Lacoste polo shirt and a pair of jeans. I looked around for somewhere to change, but there was nowhere to hide and Ygritte didn't bat an eyelid as I stripped down to my pants and put on the clothes.

"Better," she said, looking me up and down. "Pretty good."

She threw me more shirts: Paul Smith, Ralph Lauren, some soft knitwear, then deck shoes, Nike trainers and a pair of suede desert boots. I tried on other combinations and became less embarrassed at standing half naked in front of this hot-looking Scottish woman.

"I think it's all working, Snow," she said. "You wear clothes well. But I'll take back the Calvin Klein stuff because it makes you look… a bit gay."

"Cheers," I chuckled, rolling my eyes.

"No, gay in a good way." She laughed. "It's just that I want you looking a bit rougher and tougher for this gig, a bit more casual. Queeny's not going to go down all that well."

"So how do I look now?" I asked. I had a pair of washed-out vintage Levi's, deck shoes, a short-sleeved Ralph Lauren shirt and a black Aquascutum windcheater.

"Cool," she said, handing me some aviator sunglasses. "Yeah, cool and a bit preppy. Possibly a bit indie band-ish. Like a South London boy who spends all his wages on clobber _should _look. You look like _Jon Snow_. Plus, I just feel like _Jon Snow's_ favourite colour would be black."

"I'll take that as a compliment." And she was right. Black was my favourite. It didn't matter whether I was Jon Stark or Jon Snow, though.

"I chose them, you cheeky bugger," she said. She paused for a moment. "But your hair's still a bit too curly."

"Curly?" Defensive, my hand went to my fringe.

"It is though," the look I gave her after that comment made her laugh. "Sorry, I meant it looks a bit messy and quite long. We'll sort that out next."

To be honest, she was quite right. My hair was pretty long. Perhaps a haircut wouldn't hurt. A minute later she was pushing me down into an office chair with a scarf around my neck, snipping away at my hair with small scissors. After ten minutes, she rolled my chair in front of a mirror and tousled my hair with fingers.

"Gives it a bit more texture," Ygritte explained, admiring her work. She put her hands on my shoulder and squeezed hard. She then asked, "Like it?"

I looked in the mirror at my battered face and at the new, shorter hair. It was the same style as I already had, just down to my neck this time. And I had to admit, it did look good.

Rouger. Tougher. Definitely sexier. If I was sexually attracted to myself, I would. 100%.

"Yeah," I answered, chuckling at my new look. "I like it."

"Good. I like it too," she smirked. "Okay, let's pack this lot away." Ygritte ruffled the top of my head again. "The boss wants to see us for a drink."

…

Jaime Lannister gathered everyone to the library: Ramsay, Myranda, Tormund, Sam and Ygritte and one or two other faces I had seen during the past few days. Everyone was drinking red or white wine except Jaime and Ramsay, who both drank whiskey.

I chose white and regretted it afterwards; it wasn't very cold and tasted of old wood. After the first glass I switched to red, which wasn't much better either, but I drank it anyway. I stuck by Ygritte who insisted I just stick to her and we chatted for a bit. Not only was she good-looking and had a sense of humour but, stupidly, I felt protected by her. I had no idea as to why, she was hardly maternal to say the least. Maybe it was just her strong feminine vibe I got from her after living in a violent, sweaty world of older blokes for a bloody week.

Maybe it was just that I fancied her to bits and would have crawled over thin ice, fire or broken glass just to drink her bathwater.

Of course, all the others tried it on with her in a multitude of ways. Ramsay came over and made what he thought were smart remarks, but it just made him look like a sexist wanker. His head wobbled a bit when he talked at her. Here I was surprised as to what in the world Myranda saw in him. Tormund flexed his muscles and reminded her of how bendy she had been when she did her assault course. He looked like he might be about to drop and do some push-ups to try and impress her. Wasn't he married, though? Sam took a different approach and made silly jokes at the level of his Secret Squirrel song on the assumption that making a girl laugh was half the battle. He mostly chuckled at the jokes himself, snorting when he laughed. Wasn't he married, too?

Ygritte rolled her eyes as she focused all her attention on me as we conversed. Maybe she fancied me too? Only a boy, like me, can dream.

Only Jaime stood back. He acted as if talking to girlies was a bit shallow. Or maybe they weren't his thing. Given the options available to Ygritte, I started to reckon I wasn't a bad choice to begin with. I think the wine was getting to me. Just as I was fantasizing about my chances, Jaime tapped his glass with a pen and called for silence.

"Thank you all for coming, everyone," he announced. "I'm not going to say much. As most of you know, I never do. I just wanted to give a few words of welcome to our new recruit, Jon Snow. Mr Snow is _the_ youngest operative we have ever taken on – indeed, I have bent the rules backwards to make it possible. It was a risk, and I am glad to say that my gamble shows early signs of paying off."

I glanced over at Ramsay, who looked determinedly straight ahead, nodding me as a true sign of respect. Ygritte smiled and winked at me. Jaime continued.

"In terms of our organization, I would like to remind you all that Jon does not become strictly legal for a while, so for most purposes he doesn't actually exist. Given that, I hope you will all give Jon Snow here what you can in terms of support and protection. That is all. I'm sure you'll join me in wishing him all the best."

He raised his glass."

"Jon Snow."

That's rich, I thought. I'm putting my cock in the like and, like Robb, I don't actually exist.

"Jon Snow," they chanted.

…

Once Jaime had gone back to London, Ramsay rallied all of us together to go to the nearest pub in the area. We piled into a couple of official Jaguars and raced down the country lanes the mile or so to the village. Ramsay and Tormund were driving, and no one seemed too concerned about the amount they had already drunk. I guess they both had a Get Out of Jail Free card.

I sat in the back and engineered it so that I was next to Ygritte. I had already felt flushed with the wine, and the pressure of her body against mine on the back seat made me breathless. I opened the window for the fresh air.

In the pub they bought round after round an, although I was a bit slower than the rest, I must have had four pints of lager. On top of the wine, I was feeling quite pissed. There was lots of laughing and bantering, but I kept pretty quiet. I didn't want make a twit of myself and, in particular, did not want to behave like a twit in front of Ygritte.

"You're quiet," she noticed, sipping a pint of lager with the best of them and with no apparent effect.

"It's been a busy week," I replied.

She smiled and patted my leg. I noticed the unevenness of her white teeth that made her lip curl sexily when she smiled.

Then it was all off for a curry in one of those Indian restaurants you find in villages all over the country. More beer and a chicken jalfrezi. I don't remember much about it, except that it was probably the worse curry I have ever eaten.

On the way back, I sat next to Ygritte again. She was wedged between me and Sam, and as the car swerved round the country lanes, gravity had pushed her against me, so close that her beautiful red hair flew across my face and I could smell her faint perfume above the aroma of beer and fags in the car. As the car banked violently again, she steadied herself and her hand slipped accidentally across my leg into my crotch.

"Sorry, Jon," she said, pulling away quickly.

"Don't worry about it." I swallowed hard. She leant forwards and shouted at Tormund in the driving seat.

"Oi! Will you stop driving like a complete see-you-on-the-other-side-of-life? Some of us have the rest of our lives to look forward to, you know!"

"Sorry, _girl_," he laughed. "Bit fast for the girls in the back is it?"

"Put a sock in it, Tormund, you beast-shagger," I shouted, half hoking and cocky with the booze, "or I'll have to give you another slap!"

He laughed. No offence taken. Ygritte laughed too, which pleased me a lot, and Tormund slowed down a little.

I don't remember much going to bed. It was dark back at base and there were few slaps on the back and drunken goodbyes and a kiss on the cheek from Ygritte. I remember crunching back across the gravel, hitting my bunk and closing my eyes. The room spun around for a bit, but I managed to hold on to the contents of my guts – which might have been a bad idea because as soon as I drifted off, I started to dream…

…

_I was in park somewhere. Greenwich? It was hot and sunny. My mum was there too, the siblings and Robb, drinking cans of Stella Artois. We were having a picnic and Ygritte was somehow there with us, lying in the sun in a bikini, looking very pretty and hot. I was feeling embarrassed because I was wearing these stupid swimming trunks and I had trouble keeping my wedding tackle contained. _

_The sky seemed to darken over, as if there was a thunderstorm coming, and dogs from all over the park began to circle our picnic. Robb was drunk and angry as he started trying it on with Ygritte and she was doing her best to push him away from her, and the more she did, the more persistent Robb got. He pulled at her at her bikini top until it came off and she shouted at him. He wouldn't leave her alone, so I threw myself on him, rolled him over and began to smash my fist into his face again and again, blood spraying everywhere._

_Then I noticed that he wasn't resisting and that my fist seemed to sink into his head. Like I was punching an overripe melon. I pulled my fist away and saw that his face was completely pushed in, dead and grey, filled with maggots, and his body swollen and bloated as if it had been in the water for weeks._

_I could hear my mum and siblings screaming and I looked around to where she was sitting, surrounded by dogs. Alsatians, Mastiffs, Pitbulls and Dobermanns, all growling, and eating whatever they could find. Then Bran screamed louder as a big big dog bit the sleeve of his long-sleeved shirt and tore at it. I jumped up and tried to pull the dogs away, but they snapped and snarled, gnashing and baring their teeth, biting at his face, biting my hands, biting mum and the others._

_Two dogs had broken away and were doing something to Robb's body. As I got closer I could see that they had torn his bloated stomach open and were eating his entrails, dragging out lengths of intestine on to the grass, their teeth and gums covered in his blood._

_Then I saw Ygritte raise her head from Robb's body. She was on all fours and her mouth covered in blood, as if she was a dog and eating him too, the blood dripping down from her chin all over her naked–_

…

For a split second I didn't know if I was still dreaming. The door smashed in and I was dragged from my bed in the darkness. A hand slapped gaffer tape across my mouth and someone blindfolded me. I was dragged away down the corridor. I could feel the shiny lino under my feet, and then the graved as I was manhandled out of the building. There were no voices. Just grunts of effort as various hands lifted and pulled me this way and that, tying me up. The night air was damp and I could hear an engine running. I felt cold metal. I was bundled into the boot of the car. The smell of petrol. It became darker, the sounds muffled as the door of the boot was slammed and the car roared off.

What the–?

How could they have let this happen to me? My heart was pounding and the adrenalin seemed to clear my head a little. I tried to think rationally. This place was supposed to be high security, yet someone – several people – had just dragged me out of my bed. Unless it was someone on the inside? What the hell was this? A hostage-taking? A kneecapping?

A warning not to get involved?

I bumped up and down in the boot, wrestling against the ropes around my wrists as the car sped along the lanes and round corners. Finally it stopped, and the momentum threw me against the back of the boot. I hit my head on something sharp. If I hadn't been fully awake before, I was now.

I heard voices, muffled, and then the boot opened. I was pulled out again. My feet were bare and I was only wearing a black T-shirt and grey sleeping pants. The night air felt chilly and I could smell woodland. I heard a wooden door creak open and I was led into some kind of building.

It smelt of hut: damp canvas, sawdust, wood preserver.

I was pushed down into a chair, and a light punch in the guts helped me sit down. I thought I was going to chuck up. The gaffer tape was ripped off and the nausea thankfully subsided.

"What's your name?" a voice came from the darkness. A voice I didn't recognize.

"Jon Snow."

"What's your brother's name, Jon?"

"I… I don't have a brother."

"You sure?" the voice asked. "You don't seem too sure."

"I am sure, 100%."

"Tell me again, about your brother."

"I'm telling you, I don't have a brother," I insisted, getting a bit aggressive now.

"What about Robb?" The voice questioned gloatingly.

"I don't know anyone named Robb," I replied.

"What's your middle name?" The voice came closer, hoarser. And i could smell alcohol on his breath.

"I don't have one either." I desperately tried to remember the details of my cover.

"So what's the first name of your brother?"

"Robb." Shit, no. "I haven't got a brother, dammit!"

The voice jeered and another voice joined in. Suddenly the chair was icked from under me and I felt cold metal against my neck.

This is it, I thought. I've blown it and now I'm dead meat.

Terrified, I felt a tug at the waistband of my boxers. My mind reeled at the possibilities of the torture that might follow. Then I felt something wet splash on my face, heard the gurgle of an aerosol and smelt something perfumed, soapy and unmistakable.

I was being drenched in beer and covered in shaving foam.

Moments later, with much teasing and beery laughter, I was bundled back into the boot of the car and driven a short way down the lane. Then I was pulled from the boot, dumped on a grass verge and left as the car sped off.

"YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!" I screamed after the car.

It took only a few seconds to wriggle my hands free and pull of the blindfold thanks to my training. I untied my feet, which were filthy. I was half naked, and my underwear was torn. Soaked in beer, ketchup, aftershave and shaving foam. Alone in a country lane in the middle of the fucking night. The victim of some stupid initiation ritual.

"FUCKING PERVERTS!" I screamed again, for good measure, though they were long gone.

I began to walk. Twenty minutes later the lights of the building appeared between the trees. The guard on the gate let me through with a nod. He'd clearly been expecting me. I could've sworn he was laughing his arse off internally as I walked passed him. The clock on the wall of his hut made it nearly three-thirty.

I found my way to my room and went straight into the bathroom. As well as my already bashed-up face I had a fresh cut on my forehead, and not only did I stink like a dead ferret, but my face had been blackened with boot polish. I looked like I had been camouflaged to go on some mad night manoeuvre up the Amazon, smelling of aftershave, shaving foam, ketchup and beer to attract the natives and the flies.

I got into the shower and turned it up as hot as I could stand. As the needles of scalding water stabbed my shoulders I scrubbed at my face and body, trying to remove all the boot polish and the lingering smells. Trying to wash away the stains of my shame.

The horror of having been so comprehensively done over would be hard to live down. My cover had cracked under pressure. I stepped into the bedroom, naked. Shaken still, but at least I was now clean.

"What kept you?" Another voice came from the half-light. From my bed.

"Ygritte?"

She sat up and pulled the covers back, making room for me beside her.

"Come on, Snow," she said in a soft, nurturing voice. "In you get."

…


	4. Steer Well Clear

_**Thanks to those who follow this story! I really appreciate it since this is my first GoT story.**_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Game of Thrones. Wish I did though so I could recreate Season 8. **_

…

I woke up early, the sun already shining through the window. I woke up alone: Ygritte was gone. Only the indentation on the pillow and the light smell of her perfume told me that she had ever been there.

Tyrion came and picked me up at about ten-thirty. No one else was there to see me off. Apparently they'd all gone back to London already. I was quickly realizing that there was no sentimentality in this game. Ygritte hadn't even said goodbye, or left a note. What Tyrion had said about not getting too close to anybody, particularly other operatives, clearly held true. A note would have been considered as concrete evidence of closeness.

I would have to adjust my way of thinking.

As I threw my bag in the boot, I had a momentary flashback to the small hours of the night before.

I got into the car and Tyrion looked genuinely pleased to see me as we sat together in the back.

"How are you doing, boy?" he said, throwing an arm around my neck and pulling me down to him for a hug. "The boss said you did brilliantly." He squeezed tighter. "I'm quite chuffed, Snow."

"Yeah, it wasn't bad." My new name was beginning to sound normal to me already. "I could have put up with being near crippled by the red-bearded sadist. But being abducted, terrorized and dropped in the woods with my pants round my ankles in the middle of the night was pushing it a bit. I felt like I'd been raped."

Tyrion's face dropped. "Oh, they didn't, did they?" He looked pained.

"Well, not raped _exactly_…" I admitted.

"I thought they'd stopped that ridiculous initiation bullshit years ago. Boot polish and shaving cream all over, was it?"

I nodded. "Plus ketchup, beer, aftershave, gravy and possibly piss."

Tyrion shook his head, so did the driver who pulled away and started off along the drive. "Who was it?" Tyrion asked.

"I didn't really see," I said. "But if I had to guess, I suspect Ramsay was the one behind it. There was another… probably Tormund or Myranda?"

"Hmm. Could be. She has a sweet voice but she deepen it. Although it could have been any of them, to be honest. Possibly people you haven't even met."

"Right. So if it's just an initiation prank, why did they scare me shitless? I thought they were going to slice my head clean or something."

The driver pulled out on to the main road as Tyrion replied. "The charitable view is that they were just testing your cover under stress. Especially if you'd had a skinful."

"Nice of them to be so concerned," I muttered sarcastically.

"Well, you can't always choose when your story's going to be tested," Tyrion said. "It's quite likely to take you by surprise."

"So why did they keep going on about my brother?" I asked.

"Did they?"

"Yes, every other question. Trying to catch me out."

Tyrion sighed. "Well, the _uncharitable view_…"

"Yes?"

"…Is that Robb was not universally popular. And you might be taking a bit of stick for it."

"Great." Instinctively I felt protective of Robb. "Now you tell me. Why?"

"Everything I've told you so far has been true," Tyrion assured me. "He was a hero. But that's just it … the gong and everything, makes people jealous. Especially when they feel they've been working just as hard, or in equally dangerous conditions. And Robb went about stuff his own way. On his own. Which can make people resentful, like they're not being trusted or kept in the know."

"But he's got results, right?"

"Sure," Tyrion said evasively. "On his terms."

"I see."

"I just thought you should know." Tyrion looked across at me.

"Cheers," I said. "Better late than never."

"So you got back all right afterwards?" Tyrion asked, changing the subject back to me.

"Yeah, half naked and covered in _shit_, but alive."

"Good, and you got cleaned OK, and got some rest?" Tyrion threw me a sideways glance.

"Yeah, I was fine once I'd had a shower and got into bed," I replied, feeling myself blush. I was thinking about her. THAT could definitely get me and her into trouble out their in the field.

"Good." Tyrion indicated the driver to overtake a slow old lady.

I put my head back on the headrest and shut my eyes, smiling at the memory: remembering a faster, younger one.

…

We got back to Deptford around lunchtime. Tyrion had told the driver to push on into Greenwich and so we drove up the hill and parked outside a nice old pub in the middle of a row of Georgian houses. Well, Tyrion told me they were Georgian. I should take notice of that kind of detail, he said. It can come in handy at one point.

I still felt a bit wobbly from the night before, but I'd had a kip in the car and by the time Tyrion had forced a pint and a sausage baguette down me, I felt as right as rain.

"So, are you still all right about taking on this job?" Tyrion wiped a smear of ketchup and mustard from the corner of his mouth. I shielded my eyes from the sun, which beat down brightly into the beer garden. Tyrion was wearing mirrored sunglasses and it was hard to read his expression.

"Yeah, I guess."

"You don't sound too keen."

I paused for a second, picking my words. "It's been quite a week," I said. "I've had to change the way I think about one or two things."

Tyrion nodded.

"Learned to trust no one… and not to take anything or anyone on face value … even my own brother."

"Sure," Tyrion said, "that's spot on. So?"

"So, it's made me view the world as a pretty dark place."

Tyrion looked into his pint for a moment as if it were a crystal ball. "That much darker than before?" he asked. "Vagrant, alcoholic father, no money, dead brother?"

I looked up and stared at the bright blue sky. Something in me had always been able to make a blue sky look black. "No, not that much darker."

"Serious doubts I assume?" The shorter man peered at me over the top of his specs.

"It's a bit late to back out, though," I pointed out. "Now I know the nature of this game."

"Well, it's not too late yet. But I agree, it wouldn't look good for any of us to try and get you out now."

"So, I'm in."

"Good man," Tyrion smiled. "I can give you this then."

He put his hand out across the table and gave me a memory stick.

"What's this for?"

"Some of Robb's stuff," he said, catching me by surprise. "You don't have to use it, but it might give you a bit of insight, you know, into what he was up to." He walked over to me and squeezed my shoulder, then drained what was left of his Guinness and lifted up his sunglasses. "One thing you can be sure of, boy," he said. "You can trust _me_."

"Can I?"

"Yes," he sounded sincere. And I believed him.

…

Tyrion had the driver drop me off at the flat after lunch. He said I should spend the weekend relaxing, and get to know the apartment and the area. Get up to speed with my new computers and phone before starting the job on Monday.

A new term.

I reminded myself of the codes and let myself in. The apartment still smelt brand new. My stuff was all there and the bridge had been filled in my absence. There was a good-luck card from Tyrion and a bottle champagne. He really was looking out for me. He'd also left a handful of black notebooks on the table. _Moleskine_, the label read. Tyrion had written a note: _Use them, then get them back to me. Store in a safe place._ I supposed it was up to me to find my own safe place – even Tyrion didn't want to know where it was.

I wandered around the apartment aimlessly for a few minutes, stared out of the big windows across at Canary Wharf, then took a leak in the brand-new toilet, like a dog marking its territory.

I got a beer from the fridge, enjoying the fact that I could. Then I walked over to the bedroom and lay back on the big, white bed, which smelt fresh and clean. I pointed the remote at the widescreen and a black-and-white movie came on. I caught a shot of Piccadilly Circus, then a sign that said _New Scotland Yard_. A police officer was talking to a woman wearing a great big bow and one of those ugly hats they wore back then.

"_You're quite right, madam,"_ he said in a squeaky, old-film voice, "_It's true that the air ministry has a new thing that quite a few people are interested in, but they're positive that no papers are missing that would be any use to a spy…"_

I laughed.

The next scene was in the London Palladium, where a greasy-looking bloke with a pencil moustache asked the memory man on stage, "_Look here! What _are _these Thirty-Nine Steps?"_

And the memory man went into a kind of trance and said, "_Thirty-Nine Steps is an organization of spies, collecting information on behalf of the foreign office…"_ Then he got shot by some villain in the balcony with a cap gun.

I sipped my beer and chuckled at the simplicity of it all. I didn't find out what happened in the end, because by the time the old jazz-band music kicked in, I felt myself nodding off into a deep and dreamless sleep.

…

_**One week later… **_

It didn't take long to spot Daenerys Targaryen.

She was surrounded by a group of girls. Good-looking girls like her usually hang around with a couple of rough-looking ones who won't draw attention away from the main attraction. But the girls surrounding Daenerys Targaryen weren't exactly dogs either: they were all well-dressed with good haircuts and a kind of polish you rarely see in my patch of South London. Taken individually, you would probably fancy any one of them, but together they all looked a bit ordinary compared with Daenerys. She was naturally icy white, while the rest of them had expensive highlights or shiny brown curls. She was small – she must have been five two or five three or probably in between, and not thin either. She had quite an old-fashioned figure. Curvy. The others came in various shapes and sizes. There was a bunch of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean beauties as well as a much taller mixed race beauty who could've been a model or even an athlete.

Daenerys on the other hand seemed to glow a bit brighter than the others. Her conversation looked animated and lively, and there were laughs whenever she said anything. It was as she had a natural aura of celebrity about her.

I didn't gawp, of course. I used some of my newly learnt field craft to observe from afar, to keep a distance and remain unobtrusive.

I had caught a DLR train from Deptford Bridge, then hopped on a bus at Lewisham Station that took me down towards Bromley, in the posher part of the suburbs. Even though the bus stopped directly outside Marlowe Sixth Form College, I got off a couple of stops early. I didn't want anyone to see me arrive at the gates. Inf fact I circled around the block and approached the college from the opposite direction. Quite a few of the students arrived in cars, and I was surprised by the number of Minies, Golfs and Beetle convertibles in the small car park. I didn't attract any attention: I was underdressed in jeans, a charcoal grey sweatshirt and black suede skate shoes, carrying a backpack that held my phone, laptop and some books. The idea was to blend in with the background. Seemed easy enough.

Everyone gathered in the large yard at the rear of the college building. It was the first day of term and students clustered in pairs and groups. The noise of their chatter was loud in the air, with that excitement that people have catching up after their holidays. I did a circuit around the yard but looking around vaguely, taking in all the groups, acting as if I was looking for someone. All the while I kept Daenerys and her gang, all leggings, hair and Ugg boots, firmly in my sights. I was a spy, but add an extra thirty years to me I would have been considered an undercover pedophile.

Another unusual thing about them was that there were no males hanging around. Boys circled and watched but didn't even attempt to join in. I felt as if I was watching some kind of wildlife documentary on National Geographic. The girls surrounding Daenerys knew the boys were circling and therefore made gestures: playing with their hair, checking their lipgloss, putting their hands behind their heads, world-weary, as if they were already bored by the day. The looks they flashed at nearby males did nothing to encourage an approach. They were all protecting their queen.

Getting to know Daenerys Targaryen was already looking more difficult than I had anticipated.

"Sorry…" I'd stepped back straight into someone's foot. I automatically apologized, but whoever was behind me must have been virtually been breathing down my neck. I turned to see a bloke pretty much my age.

"No worries," he said, grinning. "The _Dany_ Gang."

He nodded towards the group of girls and I was instantly fuming with myself. So much for subtle surveillance – I had already been caught watching by someone watching me.

"You can look, but don't touch," he continued.

"Oh, right."

"You're new here, aren't you?" he asked. "My name's Grey. Grey Torgo." He held out his hand for me to shake. I did.

"Jon Snow," I replied. "Yes, I am new."

"You'll be needing a friend to show you around then," Grey continued, as if I had no choice in the matter. "What subjects are you doing?"

"IT, History and French."

"Interesting choices," he said. "You'll be doing IT with me."

"What are the chances."

Grey grinned, uncertain as to whether I was being sarcastic or not."

"Best move on in then," he said finally as the bell rang. "It's first session."

…

Grey Torgo had made sure he sat next to me during IT. Other lads pushed and jostled him on the way in, taking the piss at him just because they could. He was clearly in the butt of plenty of jokes but seemed to accept his position in life, good-naturedly telling the others to naff off. Wherever you go, it's always the needy freaks who run up and try to make friends first. They're either the ones that no one else likes, or they have worn out all their other friendships by being weird and demanding. They've tried everyone else, so you're next in line. Fresh meat.

I tend to think that people who are desperate to be your friend are honestly best if they're avoided, so although I felt a bit cruel, I tried to shake him off at the first break. But Grey wasn't having it and followed me to the canteen, stuck to me like glue. I worried that his presence was already cramping my style – but then no one else had so much as looked at me, let alone spoken to me, so I decided that Grey was a good enough place to start my enquiries. I grabbed a coffee and he sat himself down next to me, drinking from a bottle of water.

"So, first impressions," he said, glancing around the canteen. It looked pretty ordinary to me: a few vending machines, some tables, a sandwich bar. Daenerys and a couple of her girls were sitting over on the other side.

"Yeah, pretty good," I said, not wishing to offend.

"So how come you're starting this year?" Grey asked.

"I had a gap in my education," I said honestly. "A death in the family. Took some time out, then got a place here."

"Sorry about that," said Grey, looking at me sideways. He shut up for a moment, as if he was worried he might have upset me. I used his silence to take the initiative.

"So, what's the deal with Daenerys Targaryen then?" I asked, nodding in her general direction.

"Don't you know?" Grey almost squeaked, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Her old man is supposed to be some major villain. Serious robberies, drugs, fraud … all of that. He even gets people sorted … you know, blown away. 'The Mad King' is his name around these parts."

I shrugged as if to say no, I didn't know. Of course, I had done some background reading on the Targaryen family, but it was best to act ignorant.

"Sweet," I said. "So does she have a boyfriend?"

Grey snorted. "Apparently there was one; pretty big guy, y'know. Buff as hell. Rumour has it he was suffocated in his bed for trying to get her bra off in bed."

_Oh shit…_ I had to bite my lip.

"So basically, even if she was interested in having a relationship with bloke," Grey continued, "no man, and I mean NO man, would ever go near her for fear of her father."

I glanced up and saw that Daenerys was looking directly at me from across the room. My stomach lurched a little as I felt I'd been caught in the headlights. I attempted a light smile and she turned away again. I kept looking for a moment longer.

She really did have a fantastic figure. Like I said, curvy. Short but curvy. I could care less about her height, I just wondered whether it would be worth the risk of suffocating…

…

I got back to Deptford at around five. It had been my first day on the job and I thought I should start writing up my notes. I opened up a blank page in one of the new notebooks and stared at if for a while. Then fiddled with a pen and looked at the page a little longer. I didn't know where to start. I had worked out a hidey-hole in the floor of the closet in my bedroom by just levering up a plank that opened into a cable duct. There was a good space down there and once I had replaced the square of carpet over it, I reckoned it was pretty secure. I lifted the carpet and pulled up the blank. Underneath were spare SIM cards and memory cards, my false passport and ID, and the memory stick that Tyrion had given me. I plugged it into the laptop and double-clicked on the icon. There were several MP3 files, all labelled _Classified_ and dated two or three years ago. I clicked on the first.

My brother's voice.

It was a verbal account, a bit monotonous, but Robb's voice. I tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but all I could hear was the sound of him. I spooled the clip back to the start and listened again.

…

"_Came back to Belfast a week before the start of term. Just to get into the swing of things, do some groundwork before the rest of the Frey mob gets back to Yorkshire on Friday. The chemical engineering course attracts all the nutters and misfits… The chemists spend more time in the pub than students on any other course, and the ones who aren't learning to make explosives seem to be intent on making stuff to blow their minds…"_

…

I scrolled forwards a bit.

…

"_They've bought my cover as a mature research student on secondment from Royal Holloway. It all fits with what they know about London: my flat in Kilburn; my sympathy for the cause. My accent is Scottish, but my 'parents' are English. I'm Robert Wolf to them. Jaime. It all adds up, and none of them seem to be the suspicious type … I hope."_

…

He went on the describe how he had gone out for an evening with some girl named Talisa, a member of the chemist organization, how she had taken him up to a pub in the Falls Road area:

…

_"Talisa ordered Guinnesses for the both of us and we sat at a formica-topped table at the back of the bar by the pool table. We played a game and I beat her. Afterwards, we got pretty close and she never took her eyes off me. I was getting pretty uncomfortable. I sipped Guinness I didn't even want, just to stop my mouth from being dry. I didn't trust her. I suspected Talisa was an informant for the Frey's. And this was all happening to soon. She finally spoke, told me that she had seen me hanging around the college during the holidays._

_'Sniffing around,' she said._

_I repeated my story that I had comeback early to revise for exams. Talisa nodded and didn't say anything else, which made me more nervous. She may have been a woman, but she had intimidating mannerisms like that of man. I needed a leak badly and went out to the toilets. I heard the toilet door swing open behind me and felt the thump of a fist on the back of my head. I dropped forwards and hit my nose on the low window sill above the urinal. Some training kicked in and I banged a leg out as I fell, catching Talisa in the shin and bringing her down with me. Did I mention she was strong for her size and could hit like a guy, too? We wrestled on the slippery tiled floor but because of her speed and agility she had the better of me. I was on my back and she held me by the collar and cracked my head against the floor._

_'You fucking liar!' she spat into my face, and I could smell and taste the beer and aggression on her breath. She had quite a lot to drink that night. I tried to blink my mind clear through the drink and the throb from the back of my head. Talisa punched me in the mouth and my head went back against the tiles again. I tasted blood. I hadn't expected everything to happen so quickly. It was supposed to have taken me months to get this far into the organization. I had to think fast. I didn't want to fight back too hard and reveal my training but I had no time to spare. I would have to play my joker now, or…"_

…

The sound clip finished. I clicked on the next one, my heart pounding. I felt sick just hearing about it. I sat on the edge of the bed listening to Robb getting it off his chest. How he had shown Talisa his membership to the Harp Club in London and finally convinced her he was on her side. I scrolled forward again.

…

"_Talisa came round the following morning and apologized for her behaviour: said that taking me up to the pub was the only way to test me. To put me through the trial by fire with her _animalistic _side._

'_What's with you?' I asked. Talisa said she's got IRA genes that stretch back to Ramsay's father, Roose Bolton, that he's spent years inside and on the run in Spain.. The authorities know, but Ramsay states that he has protection in some very high places. He wants me to work on helping me find him. He could be pivotal to cracking this one, he says._

_I asked Talisa what she wanted – what she'd done. She said it was more a case of what she hadn't done. It was a very short list. I asked what might have happened if I hadn't belonged to The Harp._

_She chuckled grimly. Said she'd probably drug me and rape me in my sleep, have my ears cut afterwards for fun, then kneecap me with a power drill, castrate me and cut my throat with a bread knife before burying bits of my dismembered body all over the county. It made me feel a bit sick, especially since we had sex a couple of hours later. She reassured me in bed that she was joking, but then said she would do it just in case there was any further doubt about whose side I was on. _

_And of course, I _was _on the wrong side."_

…

Whatever side that was, Robb was a cool customer. I looked again at my blank page. A tear had rolled down my nose and onto the paper. Hearing my brother's voice again, I guess. What I was up to seemed so childish compared to all the things Robb was talking about, but you had to start somewhere I guess. I relived the moments of the day … arriving at Marlowe College, surveying the yard, meeting Grey and locating Daenerys Targaryen.

I began to write.

…

At the end of my first week at Marlowe I got off the bus at the stop just past the college so as not to fall into a routine. The bus stop was occupied by a big, navy-blue Mercedes and the bus had to pull alongside to let passengers off, blocking the car in. The car horn blared and the bus driver hooted back. The electric window of the car slid down and a massive bloke inside told the bus driver to piss off. I hopped off the bus while the altercation continued and almost bumped right into Daenerys Targaryen, who had just got out of the Mercedes. She saw me and looked embarrassed, turned and walked back towards the college. I followed a couple of steps behind her. She looked as good from behind as she did from the front.

I had a bout a hundred paces to make up my mind. If only she'd drop a hanky or a book or something naff like that, then I'd have an excuse. But she didn't, sod it.

And in one of those mad moments, I just dived in. I quickened my step and caught up with her. Here goes nothing.

"Your taxi driver looked a bit hairy," I said, jerking my thumb back to where she'd been dropped off.

She barely looked at me but smiled, reddening, which I liked. It was working.

"Yeah," she laughed awkwardly. "Really embarrassing."

I pressed on. "I'm new this term. I think we're in the same History class."

"Um… yeah, I think so." This was going quite well, if I'm honest.

The conversation would have ended there, but the gates were getting closer and any minute Daenerys would be swallowed by her gaggle of overprotective girlfriends.

So I took it.

"I was wondering if you'd like to go out some time?"

I couldn't believe it myself as the words tumbled out my mouth. Maybe it was easier to say because I was hiding behind a mask. It didn't feel like it was me who was saying it. A couple of months earlier I would never have dared. My words had an instant effect. Daenerys stopped dead in her tracks and looked at me.

"Are you asking me on a date?"

"Well, I don't really know anyone here," I began to explain. "And you look really nice."

She smiled. And I was encouraged to do better.

"Better than nice, actually," I said.

Daenerys burst into a laugh and put a hand over her mouth. "You _are_," she said. "You're asking me out!"

"Is that so bad?" I chuckled as I opened my arms so that she could look at me.

She laughed again and began to walk towards the gates. "I don't even know your name."

"Jon. Jon Snow." I caught her up and held my hand out to shake. She didn't take it but looked at it as if it was something strange, unknown. She smiled at me again and turned into the gates.

"I'm Daenerys," she replied. "And I'll think about your kind offer… _Jon Snow_."

…

Grey Torgo was straight on to me.

"Bruv," he said. "You were _talking_ to Daenerys Targaryen." He put both hands to the sides of his head as if his head was about to explode.

"Talking's a bit of an exaggeration," I said cockily. "I just opened my mouth and words came out."

"Mate. You were walking alone with her and talking," he went on. "You sir, are one brave man."

"I asked her out as well."

Grey walked over to the wall and pretended to bang his head against it. "Nah, fam. I take that back," he said. "Not brave, just completely and downright _mental_."

"She hasn't said yes yet," I told him.

"Well, let's hope she doesn't. Or her father will be putting you in that fucking medieval stretcher thing. Steer well clear man."

"Thanks for the advice." I rolled my eyes.

…

_**Hope you guys enjoyed this one, especially the little sneak peak of Robb Stark talking about his undercover stuff and Talisa. Also, I had Grey Worm renamed to Grey TORGO. I know that 'Torgo' his first name in Valyrian but to me it sounds like a surname in the real world. **_

_**Stay tuned for more.**_


	5. Kisses

_**To those who have been waiting. I apologise as I am out on vacation, but it ain't stopping me from continuing. :)**_

_**Hope you enjoy since Dany is now present and will have more appearances as the story progresses.**_

…

Daenerys had obviously said something to her posse.

At lunchtime in the canteen, her table of girls kept throwing glances my way, whispering. If I returned their stares, they tried to look bored and disinterested. Daenerys was nowhere to be seen. Grey stuck to me like a limpet. In a way, his presence gave me a sense of security. Hanging out with him turned out to be a success. Shockingly enough nobody was interested in him, therefore no one seemed interested in me, and that suited me fine since I didn't want any attention, to be honest. Although, the both of us had gotten onto nodding terms with one or two other guys who also sat on our table at lunch. Finally, one of Daenerys's girls broke free and approached our group. The other guy's eyes widened at this so called _unusual behaviour_. Grey nearly wet himself and left the table. It was the mixed girl, Missandei, who floated over and sat down opposite, folding long legs around the chair.

"Hi," she said, without even cracking a smile. "You Jon?"

"Yeah," I replied coolly. "You must be Missandei."

She nodded. Still no smile.

"You're really confident."

"Am I?"

"You must be. Do you know what you're taking on?"

"I don't get you." I didn't, really.

"Dany wants to know what you know about her," Missandei said. It was as if an envoy from the Dany Gang had been sent to negotiate a peace deal.

"Er, she's a girl," I started. "Really good-looking…" Even Missandei managed a smirk at this. "That's what I know," I admitted. "I'm new here, and I know nothing." I held up my hands in surrender. She looked at me, unsmiling again.

"I'll talk to Dany," she said. "And get back to you."

"Cheers," I said, and from the corner of my eye I could see Grey Torgo across the room, shaking his head and mouthing _Your dead, mate!_

…

"Dany says OK."

"Dany says OK, what?" I asked. Missandei looked down at me as if I was mad. As if I was questioning her authority.

"She's say _OK_, she'll go on a date."

"Will you be coming with us?" I asked, jokingly. Missandei cocked her head and gave me her 'whatever' look. "It's just that I thought Daenerys might have told me herself. Call me old fashioned…" Missandei handed me a piece of paper with a number on it.

"Text her your number and she'll contact you," she said.

"Cheers, Missandei, you're a star." I winked at her and she sort of shrugged, screwing up her face. Sense of humour was definitely not up there on the list of Missandei's life skills. Diplomacy and reaching for things from high shelves were obviously more her thing.

I hid away in an empty classroom and called Ramsay.

"Ramsay, hey! It's me, Jon."

"_I know," _he said irritatedly, "_Your name popped up you nonce."_

"I've spoken to her. I've got her number."

"_What the bloody hell took you so long, you cunt?"_

"Come on, man. I've only been here for a week," I defended myself, "And she's pretty hard to get close to."

"_Alright. Text it to me. Then keep me updated on your progress. Over and out."_

"Okay," I said, but he had already cut me off. Wanker. I punched the numbers into the Nokia and sent it. Then I put the same number into my iPhone and typed a text:

_Hey Daenerys. It's me, Jon Snow? The guy who asked you out. This is my mobile… call me sometime?_

I watched the green progress bar as it sent, then put the phone back in my pocket and felt it vibrate almost immediately with an incoming message. It was from Daenerys:

_No. YOU call ME w/e. D :)_

I smiled. It wasn't exactly a come-on, but it was contact. And no 'x' at the end, but it was still early days so no rush.

…

It was now Saturday morning.

Saturday. Fucking. Morning.

I was sitting on my bed watching TV. A couple of blokes from a has-been boy band were trying to be funny and clever as they were talking to the presenter, and failing badly. I got up and made some toast and a cup of tea, like an English gentlemen, but I couldn't settle. The idea of contacting Daenerys Targaryen was making me very jittery. Apart from anything else, I was confused. I was supposed to be getting to know her as part of a job. Supposed to be taking purely professional interest in her. But now I had made contact, I found my confidence deserting me a bit because really, really fancied her. She was hot and I had her number, and the thought of her made my stomach flutter. It was ten-thirty, still too early to call. I kicked my heels and waited till twelve. At twelve-thirty I couldn't wait any longer. I fired off a text:

_Hi. Can you talk?_

The message came straight back:

_No. Call me 5. D x_

It was a knock-back, but at least it came with an instruction to make contact later. And an 'x', which was an improvement. Or perhaps I was just reading too much into it. The afternoon dragged by. I sat out on the balcony and watched barges chugging slowly up and down the river. The skyscrapers of Canary Wharf sparkled in the sun and I must have watched twenty or more planes swoop down into City Airport, each of them looking as if they might collide with Canary Wharf Tower. I checked my watch. Four-thirty. It had been four twenty-nine last time I looked.

Eventually, five came around, and then I didn't want to look too anal by calling right on the button, so I waited three minutes. It went straight to voicemail:

"_Hi, this is Dany. Sorry, I can't take your call. Please leave me a message."_

The best part was that she was willing to let me respond. But the worst part was that I didn't. Instead, I hung up, cursing myself that I hadn't called at five sharp.

Then my phone rang.

"_Jon? It's Tyrion. Can you talk?"_

The disappointment was clear in my voice.

"Tyrion," I said, sighing. "Listen, man. I wish I could talk to you, but I'm waiting for a call from Daenerys Targaryen."

"_Enough said."_ Tyrion was quick on the uptake. "_Good work, Jon. Call me back."_ He hung up.

I waited ten more minutes and tried again. Voicemail. This time I left a message, pretty pissed off but trying to sound light and cheerful.

"Hi Dany, it's me, Jon. Give me a call back when you have a minute. Or I'll try later. Cheers."

_Cheers?_ I slapped myself on the head. Why did I say that?

Then my phone rang again.

"_Jon?"_ It was her.

"Hi, how are you?"

"_Good, thanks."_ No apology then.

There was an awkward pause. I was going to have to do the talking. "Listen, I was wondering if you'd like to do something later? Like… a film or something?"

"_I can't tonight. Sorry, I'm out."_

My heart sank. But there was no harm in trying to find the time. "Tomorrow then?"

"_I've got this big family Sunday lunch thing…"_

"Oh okay," I said flatly. "Maybe… next weekend?"

"_Actually, I could meet you in Greenwich Park later tomorrow afternoon, if you like?"_ She sounded as if she was desperate in trying to come up with a compromise. Good sign.

"That'd be great. Where in Greenwich Park?"

"There's that statue by the observatory. I'll be there at four.

"Four. Brilliant," I said as if her coming up with a time was itself an act of pure genius. I felt like a plum. "I'll see you tomorrow then."

"_OK,"_ she said. "_See ya."_

"Bye." _Bye? _The epic phone call I was expecting was all done and dusted inside sixty seconds of pauses and single syllables.

But on top of that. I had myself a date.

…

I rang Tyrion back.

"You are speaking to the man who has a date with Daenerys Targaryen," I said, bursting with pride.

"_Nice one,"_ he said laughing. "_Top stuff. Have you let Ramsay know?"_

My heart sank once again. I groaned, "Do I have to mate? I don't want him crawling all over it."

"_I understand what you mean. But Ramsay's your case officer, so you haven't got a choice here. He'll probably just let you get on with it, but you have to tell him."_

Can't be that bad, right? "Sure, I'll let him know."

"_Come and see me on Monday morning. Let me know how you got on."_ Tyrion sounded like my uncle Edmure. Quite kind. "We could do with a quick catch-up."

"But I'm supposed to be at college."

"_Hospital appointment."_

I nodded. "What do I come up with?"

"_Just make something up,"_ Tyrion said. "The clap, maybe? Genital warts." He laughed gruffly. I was a bit embarrassed, and he sensed it over the phone.

"_My bad, Jon."_ He coughed. "_I slight asthma attack?"_

"I'll think of something," I wheezed. "See you on Monday."

…

Sunday was beginning to drag as much as Saturday had. I'd got up at ten and made myself a bacon sarnie, then started to get antsy again. I listened to some more of Robb's recordings and they scared me, so I watched some comedy on YouTube for a bit, then went for a walk along the riverfront. I cut up past an old church towards Creek Road. It was called St Nicholas's and had an ancient, crumbling gateway with two worn stone skull and crossbones mounted on the gateposts. Maybe it was a pirates' cemetery or just a grim reminder of what's in store for all of us in the years to come. I was feeling shaky and paranoid like I was being watched, though I was sure I wasn't. I took deep breaths to calm myself down. All I was doing was meeting a good-looking girl, who just happens to be the daughter of a crime boss, in a park. Get over it, Snow, I told myself. I walked up past the market. One or two placed were open. Deptford High Street is a real mix: African shops, selling everything from coconut milk and dried mudfish, sit next to white-painted art galleries showing pictures by local artists. I bought a paper and sat outside a Portuguese caff that did good coffee. I had a small custard tart as well and tried to read the headlines, but I kept reading the same sentence over and over again. The caffeine hit was only making me jumpier, so I left the rest of the coffee and continued on to Greenwich. At ten to four, I started to make my way up the hill to the top of the mark. I panted up towards the statue of General James Wolfe, who looked out over the National Maritime Museum and across the river to Docklands. Five minutes later I joined the gaggle of tourists and Sunday walkers gathered around the foot of the statue, admiring the view. Ten minutes after that I was still circling the base, beginning to doubt I was in the right place. I checked my watch: 4:25 p.m. It was going to be a no-show, I was sure. I looked at my phone. No messages. I wasn't going to send one either: that would have been too sad and needy.

Then I saw her. A blue-and-red Mini screeched into the parking side and Dany got out. Short, bleach blonde yet so beautiful, she looked like a model. As she ran across the car park, tight jeans, leather jacket, swinging curls, people's heads turned. She was _running. _In a hurry. To see me. I took a deep breath. Be confident, I thought. Be Jon Snow and relax.

"I'm terribly sorry," she said, breathless. "I couldn't get away, then there was a load of traffic and roadworks up the A20."

"No worries," I lied. "I haven't been there long myself. Shall we walk and talk?"

We strolled along towards the flower gardens. The sun was shining and everything was beginning to look golden as autumn was approaching.

"So d'you live near here?" I asked.

"Not really, we're down just inside the M25," she said. "Country. You?"

"I've got a flat in Deptford."

"With your parents?"

"Alone, actually. My parents passed away," I said, pleased at how easily my cover came to me. It had an effect on Dany. Her features visibly softened.

"Sorry to hear that. Must be tough?"

I nodded. My lips set tight as if holding in emotion.

"Have they been … I mean, passed away long?" She looked genuinely sympathetic. I might have found my way in, I thought cynically.

"A couple of years," I said. "Cancer. Dad first, then Mum not long after. Unlucky, I guess, eh?"

"My dad says you don't really grow up until you lose your parents. He lost his quite early too.

A mention of her father already on our first date. Real progress, I thought. I chanced a question.

"How'd he get over it? Throw himself into work?"

"Sort of," she replied. "He's always worked hard."

Going well. I pushed it one step further.

"Well… what sort of work does he do?" I saw her figure stiffen immediately. She looked at me sideways, stared at me strangely.

"You mean you don't know?"

I shook my head just trying to look as innocent as I could.

"He's a businessman," she explained. "Self-employed. But people say all sorts of things about him. They're real jealous of his success."

"Often happens," I managed, uncertain how to respond.

"Don't believe everything you hear," she said.

I sensed the subject stopped there and didn't push any further. We came to a kiosk. "Fancy an ice cream?" I said, smiling.

She grinned back at me. Perfect white teeth. My heart lurched.

"I had a massive lunch three hours ago," she said, rubbing her stomach. She weighed it up. "But yeah, why not?"

"I like a girl with a good appetite."

"Do they have pistachio?"

"Flake as well?"

She nodded and we both laughed.

"Crushed nuts?" I added, pushing it.

"You'll have to wait and see," she said, and let out a peal of earthy laughter.

…

I walked through the guitar shop and up the back stairs towards Tyrion's office. Ygritte was there at the reception table.

"Hello, handsome," she said. I felt myself blush. Last time I'd seen her was during my induction, and things have moved so fast since.

"Hi," I replied. "How are you?" She got up and leant over her desk, kissed my cheek and squeezed my arm.

"Busy. How have you been getting on?" I remembered my date with Daenerys. It had gone pretty well, I think. The ice had certainly been broken and, once she'd warmed up a bit, we had a laugh. She actually had a pretty down-to-earth sense of humour, which was great to find in a girl who looked that good.

"Yeah, pretty good." I scratched my head. "It's all a bit new." I felt slightly uncomfortable. After all, the last time I'd seen Ygritte she hadn't had any clothes on. "Look, Ygritte, about the other night…" I began. But she just smiled and put a finger to my lips.

At that moment the door opened and Tyrion came out of his office. "Ah, Jon. You've met Ygritte?"

I nodded. "We met when I first came. And then again on my induction week."

Ygritte winked at me and sat down, went back to her screen. Tyrion ushered me through to his office.

"Tea?" he asked. I looked at the mess of unwashed mugs and dried-out tea bags and politely refused. "Something going on out there?" He gestured back towards the reception area. Towards Ygritte.

"No." I lied.

"Well, if you're sure." Tyrion scratched his stubble. "Just thought I detected a bit of… an _atmosphere._"

I shrugged. "She is pretty fit," I admitted.

"Hm. I had noticed. But don't get involved Jon." He waggled his little finger in his ear then inspected it. "Not with her, anyway. She takes no prisoners."

I told him I wouldn't, keeping my fingers crossed behind my back. Tyrion delved deeper into his ear.

"And don't get involved with anyone else, for that matter. Keep it professional."

I nodded, feeling guilty on all counts."

"So. Targaryen?"

I drew a deep breath. "I met up with her yesterday in Greenwich Park."

"You got on pretty well, it seems." Tyrion pushed a ten-by-eight black-and-white photo across the desk. I picked it up. It was blurry, taken on a telephoto lens, but it was definitely me and Daenerys. Walking along in the park, chatting and smiling. The body language was obvious too. At the time I felt that we were walking along some distance apart, but in the photo we looked close, like boyfriend and girlfriend.

"I thought you said Ramsay wouldn't put anyone on my tail?"

"I know, I said not to, but he insisted. He thinks it's too early not to keep an eye on you."

So I _was_ being watched. My instincts had been right.

"Listen, Tyrion," I said. "It's hard enough not to feel self-conscious doing this at all. But if I think I've got a camera up my arse everytime I step outside, I'll feel even more paranoid."

"It's a safety net," said Tyrion. "You'll get used to it. Now, what did you find out?"

"Not much. They live just inside the M25 somewhere off the A20, so I'm guessing down towards Brands Hatch or somewhere like that. She says her dad's a businessman and that people say all sorts of stuff about him that isn't true."

Tyrion smiled to himself. I didn't know how much he already knew.

"She's a shit timekeeper as well."

"Shit? Or playing hard to get?" he asked.

"Bit of each maybe. She's also got a sympathetic side, warm. She doesn't worry about what she eats, which is pretty healthy, I think. I can't stand girls who whinge about diets all the time."

"She might have a fast metabolism," Tyrion suggested. "She's in good shape."

I nod, agreeing with his assessment, before continuing, "And she's actually quite a laugh, once you get her away from that bunch of witches that form a protective wall around her."

"Excellent," he said. "I'd say you've found out quite a lot about our Miss Targaryen. You've watched and listened and made some reasonable deductions. She's even talked to you about her father. Good sign. It shows that she trusts you."

"You think so?"

"I do. Keep it up at this pace you started. Leave it a few days and ask if she wants to go out again. Looks like you didn't make a complete mess of your first outing, so it should be okay."

"Cheers." I grinned.

"Anything else?" Tyrion tilted his head back. Looked at me through narrowed eyes. "You holding something back?"

Tyrion must have been some kind of mind-reader, I thought. Could he detect that I was already taking more than a strictly professional interest in Daenerys? But that wasn't it. My mind was filled with what I'd heard on Robb's debrief. The fear had been chewing away at me. Tyrion kept looking at me.

"That memory stick," I said finally. "Robb's voice. It freaked me out a bit."

"Hm." The shorter man considered a moment. "I wondered if it might. I wanted you to listen to it so that you know what the work is about. Perhaps you should stop."

"That's the thing, Tyrion. I … I can't."

Tyrion had hit the nail on the head. Since my first night at the flat, I had played and replayed the voice clips each night. To begin with, it was just to hear my brother's voice, but then I became obsessed with listening to the reports of how he was getting deeper undercover, into more and more jeopardy. How he had come back to London from Belfast, made some contacts with Jaime's associates, and met with them in South London dives and clubs. Then bugged them. Was this what I was getting into?

"They scare me," I said, a bit shaken. "But I keep coming back to them."

"Do you want me to take them away?"

"No, I needed to know what Robb was up to. But I don't want you to be ignorant of the risks involved," Tyrion warned. "You're right, though, don't shit yourself up. It's not productive. Stash them away somewhere safe."

"Why was Robb in Belfast?" I asked. I couldn't let it go just yet. "Wasn't the army over there?"

"They were," he confirmed. "But army intelligence tended to stick out like a sore thumb. The IRA knew everyone and everything. We needed more of a maverick operator, with an even deeper cove. Someone a bit left of field."

"Like a mature student."

"Exactly," said Tyrion, impressed with my thinking. "Chemistry faculties are always good placed to contact potential terrorists, meet overseas students. Great places to learn how to make bombs. And Robb was good with explosives."

"Right. Wasn't all the trouble about religion and stuff … Catholics and Protestants?"

"Originally, yes, but more recently the organizations over there have become less interested in religion more like fronts for organized crime: drugs, gun-running, protection. The big stuff. Robb got right into the thick of it."

"So that's where your lot come in?"

"Precisely. Not so much because we're interested in the political side of things – although that's part of it – but more because once the crime gets to that scale, it tends to link up. Robb was a genius at uncovering those links."

"With what?" I didn't really get it.

"With other crime organizations; anyone else who's interested in drugs, guns, bombs."

"Terrorists?"

"Yes, terrorists." Tyrion took a glug of tea. "But also mafia: Russians, Italians … our own home-grown mobsters and their bent mates on the Costa del Crime. The thing about crime is that it _all _links up. The junkie who shoplifts to feed his habit is all part of the same game as the City fraudster and the Bolivian drug baron. And any intelligence we can get at any level is all useful."

"Including making friends with Daenerys?"

"Yeah," he sighed. "From little acorns…"

"But I'm not getting into heavy stuff like Robb, am I?"

Tyrion suddenly found the polystyrene tiles on his ceiling interesting. "No, no," he said. Light duties. Different area."

"Got to start somewhere, I suppose."

"Indeed." Tyrion got up from his chair and squeezed my shoulder. "You're doing good. Keep it up and try not to worry too much about what Robb did. We're your safety net; you have back-up/ Robb tended to walk the tightrope without a net. And it's a long way to fall."

"Thanks, Tyrion."

But I didn't feel reassured. I just couldn't shake the image of my brother spinning and tumbling, falling through the air to his death.

…

I wasn't popular with the rest of the girls. News of Dany's 'date', innocent as it was, had put their noses right out of joint. Missandei and another girl named Doreah could barely look at me the following morning, as if I had taken what was rightfully theirs.

All I did was buy her an ice cream.

When Dany did eventually turn up, she gave me a cheery "Hi" as she crossed the yard to join her friends, casting the odd glance in my direction, keeping it discreet.

Grey Torgo was beside himself. Apparently one of Dany's friends, probably Missandei, had told him that Dany and I had gone on a date. Of course, the story had become exaggerated, starting with cocktails at the Met Bar, followed by Dinner at the Ritz, a show and then a late night at Stringfellows. Or some such bollocks. I put him straight.

"We just went for a walk in the park, mate," I told him. "End of."

"That's it? You didn't snog her? Put your hand up your shirt?"

I dead-armed him.

"What, and get chucked off a multi-story?" He writhed, rubbing his arm to restore feeling. "No, I didn't."

"Fair enough. No hard feelings." He gave me another cheeky glance – couldn't resist the joke. "Or _were_ there?"

I dead-armed him again.

…

My next date with Dany was arranged by text. Just between the two of us, without go-betweens. I felt that I'd scored an important point. She agreed to go to a movie. Neither of us was too concerned about what to see. On offer was an action movie, a chick flick and Spider-Man: Far From Home. Tom Holland was the titular character, and Dany seemed to have a little crush on him. So we settled for Spider-Man.

Dany picked me up at Deptford Bridge DLR station, almost punctual this time, and we drove down to Greenwich. I felt bad as I fixed the magnetic tracker to the underside of the passenger's seat without Dany suspecting a thing, but it had to be done. It had been drummed into me as standard procedure.

We'd arranged to go an hour early to get something to eat, and decided on pizza. We both chose the same one, Fiorentina, with spinach and egg on top, so I changed my mind and ordered an Americano with pepperoni so we could have half and half. And a glass of house red. The waiter was Italian and was all over Dany. She thought it was funny as he waved his big pepper pot around, until I started to get a bit riled up. He got the hint and went away.

"Easy, tiger." She smiled.

"Sorry. He was setting my teeth on edge waving that thing around." We both chuckled.

After dinner, I offered to pay – I had a decent allowance to cover my expenses – but Dany insisted we went halves.

…

I tried to concentrate on the film, but the close proximity of Dany made it difficult. I could almost feel this energy coming from her, and every time she moved, I got a whiff of a faint, clean-smelling perfume. There was something quite physical about her: animal. Once or twice as she moved, her arm or leg brushed mine and my concentration went completely as I got butterflies in my stomach and my breath started to come in short bursts. It was all I could do to keep my hands off her.

Dany didn't seem to have quite the same difficulty focusing on the film, and she laughed out loud at some of the gags the film was producing. At some point she turned to me and grabbed my arm, asking whether I found it as funny as she did.

"Yeah," I said. "It's a scream." She left her arm resting on mine and it was an easy progression from there to holding hands, which we did through the rest of the film. I don't remember much about the ending; I just remembering the dry warmth of Dany's hand. I remember trying to detect any change in pressure, any small signal that I might read as encouragement. I made no further move.

Don't rush it, I thought.

Afterwards, she offered me a lift. I couldn't let her see the flat, so I refused. Said I'd be fine walking back along the river. She seemed a little disappointed and asked me to see her back to the car anyway. We walked through the backstreets that ran down to the park until we found her Mini, parked in the shadow between two streetlights.

"I'll drop you off at the bottom of the road," she suggested. So I got in.

It was quite dark by now and all I could see was Dany's hair, lit by the lights from the park and the profile of her nose and mouth. The curve of her lips in silhouette.

"Can I tell you something?" She asked.

"Sure, what's up?" I replied.

"I like this," she explained. "Being with you. I sort of… feel comfortable. It's never really happened to me before."

"Dunno why, either," I said, though really I knew and understand that almost everyone that knew her father was shit-scared of getting close to her. "But I like being with you too."

The moment comes when you know that kissing someone is inevitable. My heart beat a bit faster and Dany leant towards me, and I felt her lips as she pressed her face into mine. I felt her teeth and her wet tongue. We must have kissed for half a minute, then pulled away. Then kissed again, this time for longer. I sat back in the car seat, feeling giddy and unreal.

She dropped me off at the end of Church Street, chucked a U-turn before beeping, waving and screeching back off towards the A2.

I walked back along the river feeling like I was six inches above the ground. I was even singing to myself. The last thing I was feeling was professional: I'd almost forgotten my business – the evening had turned into pure pleasure. I got back to the flat. The checks before I went in and the PINs were pretty much second nature to me now. Even though I was floating on air.

I switched on the lights and booted up the Mac. There were a few messages – encoded stuff from Ramsay and Tyrion asking about the evening. I replied that all was well and I detailed my report in the morning. Then my phone buzzed with an incoming message. Daenerys:

_Had a great evening, Jon. I like being with you. Let's do this again sometime? D xxxx_

Four kisses. I remembered the real ones. At the rate they were multiplying, I would have enough to cover me from head to toe within a few weeks. I went to bed with that thought.

But I told myself not to rush. Too late for that now.

…

_**I'm pretty sure most of you know what 'the clap' is, unless you read about it in sex education in school. If you don't, it's another term for gonorrhea. **_

_**Once again, hope you enjoyed this chapter and I will see you all soon hopefully. I will be more focused once I am back from vacation.**_


	6. Search Me

_**Hello! I'm back and properly focused. Just recovering from my vacation, but focused.**_

_**Hope you lot enjoy this one.**_

_**And I made an image for the story! Hope you like that as well!**_

…

Several weeks, several more dates.

Dany and I were getting increasingly easy in each other's company. She was happy to hang around with me, and I couldn't believe my luck every time she made contact. Even at college there had been a major shift. She still talked to her gang of girls, but I seemed to be more her confidante than any of them were. Let's put it this way: she would leave them behind just to sit with me. Likewise, the others, Grey in particular, began to keep their distance. Grey started talking to the girls.

Talked behind our backs.

I'll be honest; I was still wary because I had gotten close to Dany under false pretences. I expected her to rumble me as a fake at any time. But the longer it went on, and the closer we got, the less fake I had felt. I was behaving like Jon Snow – not Jon Stark – and Jon Snow was someone she liked.

I much preferred the new me too. After all, what was I except a better, more confident version of myself? Better-dressed, with a bit of money and a great flat. I started thinking of it less as a new identity and more as a makeover, and as our dates became more frequent, each time was a little less surprised that I had managed to pull this gorgeous girl.

Conveniently, I had almost forgotten her background. I had also forgotten to make notes. Well, I had written them up at first, but my entries were just fucking dull: _Went out, Daenerys drove, had a drink together, ate Chinese food in Greenwich, snogged, went home._ After the first few entries I felt ashamed that they were so safe and easy compared with the missions Robb had been set, so I stopped writing them until, I imagined, something interesting might happen.

We were leaving college one Thursday, some weeks after our first date, when Dany said, "I can't do this Saturday. My father's taking us sailing over France."

"Oh." The disappointment was very clear in my voice. But playing it off was quite easy. "I didn't know you were a sailor."

"I'm not, really," she admitted. "And when I say sailing, I mean we're going on a yacht. Y'know, that big thing with an engine. You don't really get wet and…"

"I know what a yacht is." I looked at her with a sly smile.

"Oh, sorry," she said, embarrassed.

"Don't worry, it's pretty cool actually. So how big is your yacht?"

"No quite sure. About sixty foot maybe." Not only feeling embarrassed, I noticed how embarrassed she sounded. Dany probably never liked talking about her family's wealth, as if she was ashamed of it. "As big as a bus."

"Huh… so where in France are you heading off to?"

"A place called Honfleur," she told me. "It's really pretty. We're going for dinner."

I nodded, impressed. I really was.

"Maybe next time you should come with us." She even looked a little guilty. "This trip is a load of Dad's business friends. Mum and I have to smile nicely and pour them drinks and listen to their boring ass golf stories."

If I had to guess correctly, Dany was trying to put a negative spin on it, but sailing to France for dinner sounded pretty smart to me.

"My brother's coming too," she said. "I don't know if you'd like him. He tends to be quite aggy…"

"I didn't know you had a brother," I said. Although I did. Viserys Targaryen had featured in my briefing notes. I remembered Ramsay telling me about him in his own personal opinion: _Condescending, arrogant, aggressive, temperamental, and overconfident. Pretty much a pompous, thinks-he's-a-know-it-all cunt. If you two were to fight, all my life saving will be on you, Snow._

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Jon Snow," Dany said, smiling. She kissed me on the cheek and tapped my nose with her finger. "And I have two, to be specific. The other just happened to disappear."

The eldest, Rhaegar, I thought. Based on what the files say, he was the exact opposite of who Viserys was. Not seen for the longest of times, too. After Dany had mentioned him in that brief moment of hers, she looked down. Probably missed his company. So I went back to talking about the yacht.

"So where do you sail from?" I asked. "Dover or someplace else?"

"Portsmouth – well, Gosport is where the boat is. We'll drive down on Friday then sail on Saturday morning."

"What's it called?"

"I'm sorry?"

"The boat."

"Oh," she smiled. "Guess."

"…_Dany_?"

"Close. It's _Lady Daenerys I_. It was called _Stormborn_. My father just had it renamed."

I chuckled. "Isn't it unlucky to rename a boat?"

"I hope not." She laughed. "I might drown."

"Wear a life jacket," I said. "And I'll see you when you get back, yeah?"

"Maybe I could come round to your flat?" she asked. "I'll bring you a present." She put her arm around my waist and batted her eyelashes at me.

"I'll look forward to it," I said. But I wanted to gulp. She's not meant to know.

…

"She wants to come to my flat." I was on the phone speaking to Ramsay, filling him in on my progress.

"_She can't. It's a safe house, remember?_" He reminded.

"I know that. But it makes sense that she might want to, doesn't it?"

I heard him sigh. "_I'll have to think about it. Is there anything else I should know?"_

I searched my brain, looked at the notes I'd made. I'd told him the Targaryen boat bad been renamed, plus the point of departure and approximate time. Told him who was going and where and it was his guess as to why. If he knew any of it already, he didn't let on. I felt I had dished up a lot of information for Ramsay. He could have someone down in the harbours tonight, putting a tracker on the boat. Someone could be posted to look out for them when they arrived in France. Based on what I had given him, the whole trip could be under surveillance, but he still asked if there was anything else.

"That's it," I said, feeling a bit pissed off that Ramsay wasn't more appreciative of my efforts. At last I'd had something really good to report and, to be honest, Ramsay was so unresponsive when I did tell him. I felt undervalued like some bastard. Based on my identity, I AM a bastard. Tyrion had put down that Jon Snow was conceived out of wedlock as a means of 'telling a tear-jerking story for the future'. Perhaps one day I'll tell Daenerys. Anyways, I thought Ramsay might have encouraged me more. I still didn't really like him, but I did like Daenerys, so it felt strange giving information about someone I like to someone I did not. Against my instincts.

He'd had his pound of flesh for this week and I was ready for a little time out. I rang off.

An hour later, Tyrion rang. "_Good stuff, boy,"_ he said. "_Ramsay's filled me in. You're making great progress."_

"Thanks, I'm glad you think so. I wouldn't have a clue talking to Bolton."

"_You know what he's like," _said Tyrion. "_He's a pretty serious bloke. Doesn't make a song and dance about it. But he does think you're doing good."_

"Did he mention the flat?" I asked.

"_Yes, he did mention something about the flat. To be honest, I hadn't factored in that you might have got so close to her so quickly."_

I felt myself flush at the other end of the phone. "It's pretty normal to invite people round, isn't it?"

"_Course it is,"_ Tyrion said, "_But I can't risk anyone seeing the apartment. Especially anyone… well, connected."_

"So what am I supposed to do? Tell her she can't come to my flat? I think that would bring things to a pretty dead end, wouldn't it?" I challenged.

"_You're right,"_ he said after a brief pause. "_I'll sort it. I'll talk to Ygritte and get her to call you."_

…

"_Jon?_

"Yes?"

"_It's Ygritte. Can you meet me at Deptford DLR at twelve?"_

I looked at my watch, it was ten-thirty and I was still half naked in bed. It was Saturday, and I'd been drinking tea and scratching my nuts most of the morning, channel-hopping.

"Sure," I said bluntly.

"_Don't do a big meet and greet," _she replied. "_Just follow normal protocol, and when you see me, follow me towards the high street. We'll disappear in the market."_

Something in her tone made me feel a little wary. I don't know whether it was the tension I detected in her voice or if it was because Daenerys was away and I was seeing Ygritte alone. I got showered and dressed, and an hour later I was on the street. I did a routine check on the cars parked there. Nothing seemed or felt unusual, so I began to walk along the riverfront.

After a few moments I was aware of someone behind me. I quickened my step, then took a side path into the green behind the church. I ducked behind the gatepost, waiting for the figure to pass. I didn't. The man turned in straight after me and we almost collided.

"Jonny?" he said. It was a childhood nickname I hadn't heard for years. I couldn't remember the last time I'd ever seen my father. I think it was when Robb kicked him out for hitting Mum. My immediate instinct was to look around to make sure no one had seen us. The churchyard was empty save for a wino asleep on a bench and a few crows flying about.

"How the hell did you find me?" I asked under my breath.

"Accident," he said. "I wasn't actually looking for you. I thought I saw you the other day. Going towards Greenwich."

"Last I heard, you'd moved down to Hastings, or somewhere."

"I did. Now I'm back. Full of old people, the seaside. And junkies and queers. I'm still a city boy at heart: know where I am with all the drunks and the whores skulking around."

I winced at the terms he used. Remembered his voice and the expressions from my early childhood.

His hair was long as always but greasy. He was unshaven and sunburnt – not tanned, but as brown as a turd. Like he sat outside a pub all day. I felt a bit guilty that I didn't have a scrap of feeling for him. But then I guessed his long absence showed that he probably didn't feel much for me either.

"You know Robb's dead?" I asked.

He rubbed a grimy hand across his eyes, like he was trying to work up some emotions, or at least make his bloodshot eyes water.

"I heard," he said. "Bad news." He took out a pouch and rolled a fag. I looked at my watch: 11:50 a.m.

"Look, I've got to be somewhere," I told him.

"Looks like you're doing all right for yourself, Jonny," he said, lighting his roll-up.

Ducking and diving," I answered vaguely. "Listen, don't call me that. I've moved on. Everyone calls me Jon _Snow_."

"Oh yeah? I'll still think of you as a Stark," he said, trying to sound sentimental, wiping an imaginary tear from his eye.

I didn't buy it for a minute. "Well, don't," I said. "Better if you don't think of me – or see me – at all."

"Only myself to blame, I suppose." He shrugged. "Couldn't lend your old man a couple of quid till next week?"

I fished in my back pocket, pulled out my wallet and found a twenty. "Here's a score," I said. "Have it. Don't owe me, then I won't have to see you again."

He weighed up the possibilities. Looked at the note.

"Make it sixty," he negotiated. "And you won't see me for dust."

I peeled off another two twenties and handed them over.

"Good lad," he said. "Always knew you'd do well… Jon _Snow_." He clapped me on the shoulder, turned on his heels and headed off across the churchyard.

…

After that brief moment I had with my father, I remembered I was already a few minutes late for my rendezvous with Ygritte. She was sitting on the opposite eastbound platform, wearing a gray belted raincoat.

I strolled along the westbound platform as if I was waiting for a train. Then, as soon as she had seen me, I went back down the stairs to the ticket area. Ygritte came down the stairs on the other side. Once she had let the station, I followed her along the busy high street and down into the market, which was throbbing with assorted people and the sound of reggae from a CD stall. She was dressed down, but still one or two stallholders called out to her, always up for a chat with a good-looking girl.

"_Hello, darlin'," _one of them said. "_Have a look at my lovely plums…"_

"_Cheer up, treacle, it might never 'appen."_

The lairy banter of a South London market.

She was very inconspicuous, I thought. She must have thought the same thing because she ducked between the stalls and walked behind them for a while. She continued down the street until the stalls thinned out and then went into a grey-fronted, modern gallery. I went in after her and looked at the pictures, circling in the opposite direction to Ygritte until I was standing next to her, both of us looking at the same painting.

"I quite like this one," she said. It was a large, colourful image of a cartoon character in a cowboy hat, with graffiti on the wall behind him. Big splashes of acrylic paint stuck out from the canvas.

"Yeah, it's not bad." I did actually quite like it. "Sorry I was a bit late. I ran into someone I didn't want to see."

"Who?" At that moment, Ygritte sounded worried. She didn't take her eyes off the picture, speaking as if she was still talking about it.

"My dad," I whispered.

"Shit." She looked around. "Did anyone see you?"

"I don't think so. No. I'm pretty sure."

"I didn't know you had a father," she said.

"I'd almost forgotten myself."

Ygritte then passed me a sheet of paper. Estate agent's details for a flat. "Meet me there in twenty minutes," she instructed. "Get a cup of coffee, go round the houses a bit. I'm the estate agent, by the way."

She seemed edgy.

Ygritte left the gallery and the girl behind the desk didn't even look up. I spent another couple of minutes looking at paintings and then left myself, heading back down the high street in the opposite direction to Ygritte. I walked down to the end of the road and then turned back, under the railway bridge, taking a back lane up past a pub until I arrived at the address she had given me.

The flat was above a dusty row of shops, accessed by a back alley. I climbed up an outside steel staircase to a rear door on the first floor: 1a. I pressed the buzzer and nobody answered. Then I found the door open so I went inside.

It was scruffy – certainly nothing like my apartment by the river, only ten minutes away from here. Curly-edged carpets, a shiny laminate floor, white woodchip walls, a couple of chairs and a saggy sofa. I saw Ygritte looking through a net curtain out on to the street below. A bloke was just finishing some wiring, as if he was putting in a phone line or TV aerial.

"All done," he said. He handed Ygritte a wiring diagram and signed a worksheet and he left, nodding to me on his way out.

"Putting a phone in?" I asked Ygritte.

"Among other things."

"Who lives here?"

"You do," she said.

My heart sank. I had gotten so used to my smart bachelor pad. She saw my disappointment.

"Don't worry," she said. "You can stay put in the safe house. This is a place for your assignations with Daenerys Targaryen."

"_What?_ She'll blow me out as soon as she sees this fucking pile of shite."

"Don't hold back, Snow," Ygritte laughed. "Say what you want about the place. I think you're underestimating either your own attraction or the kind of girl Daenerys is."

"You think so?"

"I know so," she reassured. "The game would be up the minute she saw the place by the river. This makes you more _credible_. Young bloke same age as her, but not much money, just trying to make his way. It'll bring out her protective instincts, believe me."

She lifted the curtain and looked out of the window again.

"You seem a bit…" I hesitated before I found the right word to use. "Jumpy." I didn't want to sound cocky. She'd been doing this for a while now, whereas I was still just a rookie.

"I am a bit," she admitted. "There's something going off this weekend."

"Is it to do with the Targaryens?"

"Not sure. Probably. This is still their manor and I can smell trouble. It's all connected." She looked at me. "I just don't like it when something unexpected happens. Like you meeting your dad. We should have known about that. About him. That's exactly where most fuck-ups happen."

I agreed. Fuck-ups had always occurred around the old man.

"Does he know anything about this? Where you live? About your brother?" Ygritte questioned me.

"He knows Robb's dead," I told her. "Nothing else."

"You sure?"

"Sure. And even if he did, you could buy his eternal silence for a couple of drinks."

"You don't think much of him, do you?" Ygritte softened momentarily.

"Less than not much," I said. "He's a stranger to me."

She nodded; understood.

"I've tried to make this feel a bit like home," she said. She turned back from the window to face me. "I've put some beers in the bridge. Crack us a couple, will you?"

I went through to the kitchenette, just inside the entrance to the flat, opened the fridge and pulled out a couple of cold Buds.

"Make sure that door's shut," Ygritte called from the living room.

I checked the catch. A couple of new Banham locks had been added to the bolt and chain to the door. It was like Fort Knox. The locks were secure. I went back in with the beers.

Ygritte had taken off her raincoat and was wearing sort of business suit. I say 'business', but the skirt was quite short. It was navy blue and pretty tight and she wore it with a thin, white blouse. WHen she took off the jacket – you could see her bra straps – she definitely had more buttons undone than a real estate agent would. Unless it was an estate agent trying it on with a client. She walked through into the bedroom. It was nicer than the sitting room, with French windows that opened on to a little balcony. A floor-length curtain blew in the breeze from the open window and, although the decor was grotty, the bed had been made up with clean sheets and a puffy duvet. Ygritte took her beer from me and took a glug. She reached back into her jacket, pulled out a pack of Marlboro Lights and stuck one in her mouth.

"You don't, do you?" she asked. I shook my head. She sat on the bed and lit the cigarette, inhaling deeply and blowing out. She seemed to relax instantly.

"Feel better?" I asked.

"A cold beer, a fag, the door's locked. I'm alone in a flat with a young, fit-looking bloke on a sunny afternoon. What's not to like?" She looked at me and smiled.

"I just asked if you felt better," I said. I could feel my breath coming faster.

"I will do in a minute," she said. She patted the clean bed beside her and undid the zip on the side of her skirt. "Come here."

"Is this place wired?" I asked nervously, looking at the corners and the light fittings for hidden cameras.

"Not yet," she said. "Sit down."

I took a swig of my beer and sat down beside her.

Who was I to argue?

…

_**Monday **_

"So, how was your trip?"

"Complete disaster," Dany said, shaking her head.

Tuesday. I'd given her the address and she'd come round to the flat. She had a look around. Said it was nice.

"Did you sink?" I asked, but she didn't look in the mood for a joke.

"We got there all right, but we had this big fat Russian bloke who Dad does some business, or something, with him. He was getting pissed on wine and whiskey all the way there and started groping me and Mum, even though he'd got some twenty-year-old blonde tart with him who didn't seem to care or feel hurt. She didn't even speak a word of bloody English!"

"Sounds like fun."

"Yeah, right," she said. "It didn't end there. When we got into the harbour, he and his mate he was with started singing and showing us up. And if there's one thing my father hates, it's drawing attention to himself. He's very… discreet."

"So how did he react?" I asked. The picture I had in my mind was not someone shy and retiring at all.

"He just goes really quiet. But mum and I know he's bubbling up and everyone should watch out. Then the Russian started picking a fight with the post American client…"

"There was an American as well?" I chuckled. "Quite a party."

Dany looked at me; paused for a moment. "Yeah. Dad was introducing his American client to the Russian… Anyway, it all kicked off."

"What sort of business were they doing?" I asked, knowing I was pushing it. Dany obviously realized she was saying too much and brought the shutters down.

"I dunno," she said. "Just business. You know, like rich people in the City do. Deals. Arts and stuff."

She gave me her sideways glance and I knew not to push it further. But then she carried on with the story, as if she really needed to tell me something to compensate for cutting me off. "And if that wasn't enough, we got pulled in by a customs boat on the way back and had to be towed into Portsmouth. They turned the boat over completely. We were there 'til four in the morning. Total nightmare."

"Did they find anything?"

She shook her head. "Not a thing. I think we had a few bottles of champagne over the limit so they took them away. They were pretty embarrassed."

"What do you reckon they were after?"

Then, at that moment, Dany fixed me with her innocent green eyes. "Search me."

"Hey, and what about that present you promised me?" I reminded her.

Dany smiled and put her hands on my shoulders. "Search me…" she said again. She patted herself, then held her arms out as if she was waiting to be frisked and laughed.

…

_**Sorry if it's a short chapter. I'm just trying really hard to not cram my ideas into one. Hopefully you all understand. **_

_**Good day/night.**_


	7. The Parents

_**And I'm back.**_

_**Enjoy!**_

_**…**_

"Mum wants to meet you," Dany said. "And dad."

My guts dropped through the floor. "What?" I said. "They can't, I mean I can't, I…" I didn't know what to say, as I had started feeling this extra surge of panic.

Dany just laughed. "Course you can," she said. "They don't bite." I had imagined that they did. Hard. "I've told them all about you."

It had been a few months now, I had to admit. I'd been seeing Dany at college most days and then at the weekends – Friday night maybe, and Saturday. Sundays she was usually at home, which gave me a bit of time to catch up. I supposed they were getting curious. I knew that I would have to enter the Mad King's quarters one day but had banished the thought from my mind. Although I had done plenty more research on the Targaryen family's activities, I'd mostly drawn blanks.

It had to be done.

I was able to feed snippets back to Ramsay about stuff that Dany told me. I'd filled him in on what I knew about the sailing trip: about Russian businessmen and insulted Americans. About art. About them being hauled in by customs. But beyond that very little had happened, so when I called Ramsay from the flat and told him the Dany's parents wanted to meet me, he sounded almost excited.

"YESSS!" he hissed. "Nice one."

"Glad you're pleased," I said enthusiastically. "I'm filling my pants."

"Look, you're just a nice young man going to visit his girlfriend's mum and dad. Pretend her dad works in a bank if that makes you feel any better. Imagine him sitting on the toilet, even. That usually brings people down to size, I find."

"Thanks for the tip. He probably robs them, doesn't he?"

"What? Toilets?" said Ramsay, humorously.

"Banks," I said.

"Not quite his style, I'm afraid."

"So I'm just a boyfriend going to meet my girlfriend's parents, and her old man works in a bank. Right." I tried to convince myself.

"Yes. Except you're a boyfriend who's also going to plant a bug in the kitchen, the lounge and the Mad King's study if you can."

"You're pulling my chain." I laughed. "Do you really expect me to bug the place on my first visit when they'll be watching me like a fucking hawk?"

"We'll never know if you'll get the chance to go back again," he said. "We have to take the opportunity when it presents itself."

_**…**_

"Ramsay wants me to bug the place. On my first visit." I was whining down the phone to Tyrion. There was no negotiating with Ramsay.

"Ramsay's right, Jon," Tyrion said. "You have to strike while the iron's hot. We haven't had anyone get this close to Aerys Targaryen before. Use your tradecraft, think what your brother would have done."

His words took me back for a moment. It was the first time Tyrion had sounded anything but sympathetic. Reading between the lines, he was telling me to shut up and get on with it. Telling me to be a man.

Robb's were big shoes to fill, and I realized that I was about to try them on for size.

…

My legs were already trembling when Dany picked me up in her Mini. I'd been waiting at the top of Greenwich Park for about twenty minutes and although the sun was shining, it was a chilly morning and the damp had worked its way through the soles of my shoes, freezing my toes. It was hard to tell where the shivering from cold stopped and the shaking from nerves started.

Whichever way you look at it, I was shit-scared.

Dany kissed me on the lips. She smelt great and I got a taste of something like cherry lip balm and felt a little better.

"You look pale," she said.

"Bit cold," I said. "Not feeling a hundred per cent."

She rubbed the back of my head, combing her fingers through my hair, and I felt a bit better.

"You're not nervous, are you, Jon?" Dany challenged me, smiling.

"Course not," I said as if it was the craziest thing I'd ever heard.

"Liar! It's only my mum and dad."

"I know, I know. But your dad does come with a bit of a reputation, doesn't he?"

"You don't want to believe everything you hear." Dany smiled. "He's a teddy bear underneath it all."

I nodded. Yeah, right. From everything I'd head about Aerys 'Mad King' Targaryen, 'teddy bear' was a long way down the list. A long way from 'ruthless killer' and 'psychopathic crime lord'.

We drove across Blackheath and out on to the motorway, through the ribbon of semi-detached houses to where red bricks gave way to greenery. Past a golf course and an outdoor ski centre. Dany turned off after a few miles and drove down country lanes with more confidence than she should have had, seeing as she'd only passed her test a few months before. I put my hand on her leg and felt the soft muscles of her thigh tense and slacken through her tight jeans as she pumped the clutch.

When we got there, the house wasn't what I'd expected. Yes, there were electric gates. Yes, there was a camera. Yes, there was a long gravel road. But the house at the end of it was lovely. Old. Pretty, with ivy on the walls and neat white windows that looked out over a tidy lawn surrounded by dragon-cut hedges. I suppose I'd expected a big, flash villain's bungalow fenced in by barbed wire and guarded by Dobermans and Rottweilers, with a hot tub and a garage full of four-by-fours.

For want of a better word, Targaryen Towers looked smart. The kind of place you'd expect a rock star to live. Mick Jagger, or someone old-school like that.

My heart was in my mouth as we crunched up the drive. The only other cars visible were both vintages; one was a silver-blue and the other green. "Dany what's the blue car?" I asked, slightly embarrassed by my ignorance.

"It's a 1952 Bristol 401. Same Bristol company that used to make planes during World War II. Bombers. Fighters. You should ask my father."

I nodded, "And the green one?"

Dany smiled. "That is a restored 1950s Woodill Wildfire," she said. "Dad's obsessed with them."

"Nice one."

We walked round to the back of the house, where a bigger lawn stretched down to a lake where swans were swimming. A couple of peacocks strutted across the grass, snaking their necks down and pulling up worms.

Dany opened the back and she pinched my ass as I entered a cloakroom lined with green wellies and shooting jackets. A trio of Jack Russell terriers jumped off their bed when they heard us and showed their appreciation by licking Dany's hand, barking and jumping at her.

"Hello, babies," Dany cooed. "Jon, this is Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion."

"Nice dogs," I said. "Jack Russells, eh?"

"Yeah," she said as she petted one of them. Couldn't tell who was who. "Mum breeds them."

The dogs showed their appreciation by sniffing my nuts and returned to their beds as if I was no threat to them. They were right. My balls had shrunk by three sizes and I had never felt less of a threat to anybody.

Dany led me into the kitchen. It was vast, practically the size of my old flat, with flagstones on the floor and one of those cookers that looks like it should be in a restaurant. Something that was simmering on top smelt really good and my stomach started to rumble.

"Hungry?" Dany asked.

Before I could answer, a woman came into the room. I guessed she must have been around fifty or so, but her hair was blonde, and it made her look ten years younger. She was quite tanned and beautifully dressed in soft red, which looked expensive. She wasn't wearing anything revealing, but there was enough on show for me to see that she still had an impressive cleavage. She was definitely fanciable for an old girl.

Definitely.

She squealed and put an arm around Dany.

"Mum," she announced, "this is Jon."

Dany's mum stood back and took me in. "Daenerys has told me about you." Her voice was warm and the accent posh. When she smiled, she looked a lot like Daenerys. Good teeth.

I shook her hand. "Only good things, I hope. Pleased to meet you, Mrs Targaryen."

"Rhaella," she said. "Of course they were all good. We wouldn't want Daenerys hanging around with bad boys, would we? Can I get you a drink, Jon? Daenerys, get him a drink."

"Beer?" Dany asked.

I nodded respectfully. Anything to calm my nerves. Dany handed me a San Miguel from their big American fridge and I took a glug.

"Where are you from, Jon?" Rhaella asked.

"New Cross originally. I live in Greenwich now – well, Deptford, really."

"Aerys and I were in New Cross for a time when we were first married," she said.

"Bit rough," I said, not knowing what else to say.

"Always was a rough place." She smiled. "You living with Mum and Dad?"

"I'm afraid not, I live alone," I told her. "They both died a while back. Cancer."

Rhaella's face softened immediately. "Ah, I'm sorry. I didn't me to put you on the spot, dear." She hugged me, the wool of her dress soft and warm. "We'll look after him, won't we, Daenerys?"

Dany looked at me over her mother's shoulder and rolled her eyes, giving me the thumbs-up – like I'd given the old sob story and had got the right reaction. Dany's mum squeezed me again and kissed my cheek, and from that moment I knew I liked Rhaella Targaryen almost as much as I fancied her daughter.

That sounded wrong.

"Now Daenerys, why don't you go in and see your dad while I get dinner on the table?" said Rhaella. "He's been dying to see you all morning."

The good feelings I had from meeting Rhaella evaporated on the spot.

…

The guv'nor wasn't quite what I expected either.

Dany took my hand and led me out of the kitchen into a big entrance hall, which smelled of cigars and furniture polish. A girl was cleaning out the fireplace. She visibly brightened when Dany walked in.

"Hey, Irri," Dany said.

"Hello, Daenerys, how are you?" Irri grinned. Her accent was thick and sounded like a mix of Eastern European with a hint of English.

"I'm good, thanks. This is my Jon. Is Dad in there?" Dany pointed to a door of the hall. Irri nodded and then smiled at me like we were all part of some big, happy family.

The room that Dany took me into was a long, bright and airy, looking out across the garden. The floor was covered in what looked to me like antique rugs and there were paintings, mostly modern, on all the walls, like a gallery. There was a big, wooden desk stacked up with art books and cigar boxes, and beyond the desk, sitting on a black leather sofa, was 'Mad King' Targaryen himself.

He was taller than I'd expected. When he stood up he was like a tower, about 6'1. When he saw Dany, his face broke into a big smile, showing expensive white teeth.

"Hello, darling," he said, grabbing Dany in a bear hug and kissed her. I could see that his body was compact and strong, but softened by the black cashmere sweater that was now wrapped around Dany, owning her. Dany kissed him back, then wriggled from his embrace, tickling his ribs with her polished fingernails. He let her go, putty in her hands.

"Daddy, this is Jon. Dany looked towards me. I was rooted to the spot.

Aerys turned his attention to me, the smile fading a little. "Jon?" he said.

"Jon Snow," I said. "Pleased to meet you."

He looked at me for a moment. His eyes looked bluish but pale. His hair was white, quite long and swept back from his forehead. He was neat and immaculately groomed. He had an expensive smell about him, like leather and cigars and lemons all mixed together. When he finally held out a hand for me to shake, it was warm and soft. Not the manly crushing I was expecting.

It was as if he had nothing to prove.

"Any relation to John Snow?" he asked. "Former cricketer?" His accent was also quite posh with a more rugged voice, but quite faint.

"Not as far as I know," I replied, already feeling like he could see right through me. "I'm a bit short of relatives."

"Really? Why's that?"

I looked across at Dany, aware that I was trotting out the same old story. "My mum and dad passed," I said. "Both of them were an only child, so I don't have any uncles or cousins. Basically nothing."

Aerys nodded sympathetically. "Mine were both brown bread by the time I was fourteen. It can be a bit lonely, can't it? Less aggro at Christmas, though." He gestured over to the sofa. "Come and sit down."

He turned down the volume on the flat-screen TV that was tuned to Sky's History Channel. Black-and-white images of Winston Churchill and fighter planes flashed across the screen. He tugged at the creases of his trousers and sat down, examined the toes of his brown suede shoes. They looked as if they had never been worn outside.

"So, how you get by, Jon?" he asked. "You know, without your mum and dad."

"Dad…" Dany said, with that reproachable whine only teenage girls can make.

"It's okay, Daenerys," I said, using her full name. "I don't mind, Mr Targaryen. I was left a little bit of money, so I've got a flat. I'm still at college for a while, but during the holidays I tend to duck and dive. I help out on a market stall."

"Good ways to learn the ropes, on the market," Aerys said. "Done it myself. Do you anything about art, Jon?"

He pointed at a large, abstract picture, which took up most of the wall in front of us. To me, it looked like a big red rectangle with an orange oblong painted in the middle.

"I don't, really," I said.

"It's a Rothko," he said. "One of the great American artists of the twentieth century. What do you think it represents?"

I shook my head. I didn't want to make an idiot of myself by having a stab in the dark. "I don't know."

"Me neither. All I do know is that the longer I look at it, the more I see. I get a feeling of it like I know what Rothko felt where he was painting it. Amazing, isn't it?"

I nodded along, not wanting to disagree, but I could feel the sweat trickling down between my shoulder blades. He was making me nervous… more nervous than I was already.

"That's how I judge things, Jon," he told me. "I don't listen to opinions. I take a good look and work out how I feel about it. In here." He patted his stomach.

I couldn't work out if he was trying to tell me something – that he could see through me. I continued to stare at the painting, waiting for something to happen, and it did. The edges of the inner shape began to shimmer a little, one colour pulling against the other, and it began to live in front of my eyes. "I think I can see what you mean," I said finally.

Aerys smiled. "You can tell a lot about someone by what they hang on their walls," he said. "By having a good look and making your own mind." He clapped a hand on my shoulder and squeezed.

"Mum says lunch is ready," Dany called from the hallway. She had left me alone in the Mad King's presence for a minute. It had seemed like an hour. She winked at me, so I guess I was doing okay.

Aerys guided me out of the room, his hand still on my shoulder. "I'll take you for a spin in the Wildfire after lunch," he said. He squeezed my shoulder again until it almost hurt. "Show you a real car."

…

Lunch was smoked salmon, then a rich beef stew. I think it was French. It was made with red wine and had a thick gravy full of tiny onions and mushrooms. Herb dumplings on top. I realized that it was the most delicious thing I had ever eaten in anybody's house. Not that I had eaten in that many houses anyway, and those dinners had been mostly limited to fish fingers, beans and burgers.

Yes, it was definitely the best food I had ever eaten outside of a restaurant, so I told Rhaella. SHe smiled and told me that Aerys had made it. I was momentarily taken aback, but my comment went down well with the boss, who grinned at me and said how simple it was to make: cubed beef, bacon, button mushrooms, shallots and a bottle of cheap burgundy. He enthusiastically went through the motions of making it: browning the beef, sautéing the shallots and bacon.

"Aerys is pretty good in the kitchen, aren't you, honey?" Rhaella said.

Aerys shrugged. "Can't do puddings, though, can I?" He looked at me. "Great in the pudding department, my missus." He rubbed the small paunch that swelled beneath the cashmere. "I've got Rhaella to thank for this, haven't I, darling?"

She made a few self-deprecating noises and he grabbed her leg under the table. Rhaella gave a squeal and shot him a look that made me think that they were still at it, given half the chance. I must have blushed or looked away at their moment of intimacy because Dany jumped in.

"Dad!" she squeaked. "Jon's here, you're embarrassing him."

"Sorry, Jon," said Aerys.

"No, I don't mind, honestly," I replied. "It's nice to see a bit of love in the house."

They all laughed, and I covered the moment by collecting up all the dishes.

"He's well trained, Daenerys." Rhaella smiled, watching me. Dany slapped her mum playfully on the arm.

I was well trained. Well trained enough to stick a magnetic bug underneath the dishwasher when I went to retrieve a dropped fork while I was stacking. I sat back at the table, trying to look calm, my heart going like a steam hammer. Aerys poured me more wine.

"You like this plonk, Jon?" he asked. "It's a Rioja. Spanish." He took another sip. "I'd like to say it came from my estate in the south of Spain, but actually Rhaella picked it up from Sainsbury's. Should be about twelve quid a bottle and they're knocking it out at six ninety-nine. Can't argue with that."

"I don't really know anything about wine," I admitted. "But I like it."

"What does it taste of?" Aerys asked.

He fixed me with pale blue eyes. Another test. I thought hard, trying to identify the sensation in my mouth.

"Wood?" I suggested.

"Very good," he smiled. "Aged in oak barrels. Bit of vanilla in there, too?"

I took another sip, and there it was, like the taste you get from sponge cakes. "I see what you mean."

Aerys nodded and looked at me for a moment while Rhaella began to dish out a rhubarb crumble. "Did you know that the first rhubarb ever sold as fruit was just down the road from you, in Deptford Market?"

"I didn't," I confessed.

"The year 1820…" then he went on talking about its history but I had probably forgotten all about it later. Thankfully, Rhaella poured custard on the crumble and placed a bowl in front of me.

"Here's your medicine crumble," she winked. "Aerys is full of useless facts like that.

"So you lot have only got a few terms left at college, haven't you?" Aerys asked me and Dany.

Dany nodded as if she was bored of hearing about it. Alongside a million other parents from around the world, Aerys was clearly wondering what the hell his daughter was going to do outside full-time education.

"What are you thinking of doing after college, Jon?" he asked.

"I haven't really thought about it," I said.

"You should. You seem like a bright young man." He looked at me, longer than was strictly comfortable. Not that I was feeling all that comfortable to start with. I felt the need to expand.

"I'm not bad with computers," I told him. "And languages. I just haven't had a lot of guidance, really. You know, with my parents not around anymore."

I got a tingle up my spine as I trotted out the lie because I could Aerys was falling for it. His eyes twinkled and he patted my hand. "I don't know much about computers or languages," he said, "but it's not holding me back too much. The only computer I know how to use is this one." He tapped his head, "but if you know your way around those things, maybe you could help me."

He scraped the custard from his bowl and gulped down a cup of black coffee.

"Now let me show you the Wildfire before I get too pissed."

…

The car smelled of ancient leather and that deep, tarry oil and petrol smell you get from old garages. It was basic inside, not like a padded modern car. The dash looked like the control panel of a train or something: black dials with luminous numbers and letters. I could feel the springs on my arse through the leather seats.

Aerys started it up and the engine roared. He looked at me and grinned as if his excitement on powering the car up never got any less. He had wrapped a thick red scarf around his neck and pulled on a special pair of driving gloves, punched with holes. When he finished it off with a checked cap, he looked like something from an old film about motor racing. The car clunked into gear and across the gravel, down the drive and away from the security blanket of Dany and her mum. He roared off down the lane and within minutes we were on a slip joining the A-road, where Aerys really opened up the accelerator.

"Goes like a bomb, doesn't she?" he said. "Still got plenty of grunt for an old bird built in the fifties."

"Fantastic," I said, not really knowing what he meant.

"I'm not a big fan of these motors they put out nowadays. They're okay for hairdressers and those people they call 'celebrities'. I prefer an older model with better upholstery and a few more miles on the clock." He paused and glanced at me. "Like my missus," he added and roared with laughter.

I didn't know how to respond and looked out in the distance. He seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Mr Targaryen," I said, "but I think your wife is lovely."

Aerys laughed again and grinned to himself, pleased. In just a few hours, Aerys Targaryen had turned from a so-called fearsome mob boss into someone warm, friendly… and 'cuddly'. I almost forgot who he was.

"The daughter's not bad either," he said to me after a moment, and I remembered again. I didn't know the right answer, so I attempted something harmless.

"Goes without saying."

"She's a beautiful girl," Aerys said. "And she likes you a lot. Be nice to her."

"I will."

We drove on in silence, the hum of the Wildfire's engine the only music Aerys needed. My heart started beating like a drum as I fished in my pocket for a bug and tried to fix it under the seat. Aerys glanced in my direction as I shuffled about, and I adjusted my trouser and coughed as if I was uncomfortable in the seat.

"Okay, so you might want something better sprung for a long journey," he conceded.

I nodded and managed to find a hold for the bug with my left hand. I wasn't confident it was on properly, but it was the only chance I had. We turned off the A-road then back across some fields past an oast house and over a stream. In ten minutes we were back in the lane leading up to the Targaryen home. As the electric gates closed slowly behind us and the Wildfire purred up the drive, Aerys spoke again. This time his voice was quiet, measured, and I realized what our drive had been about.

"While we're on the subject of Daenerys," he said, "she's my life."

I gulped, about to agree, but he continued.

"And anything… anything… bad you do to her, I will do to you ten times over. Understood?"

I nodded, briefly recalling what Grey Torgo said about the legend of the bra and pillow suffocation of Dany's previous boyfriend. I really started to wonder where Aerys's definition of 'bad' started. If it included kissing, I was already in deep shit. I might get kissed to death.

By him. I hope not.

We got out of the car and the doors slammed with a heavy clunk, bringing our conversation to an end.

_**…**_

_**To anyone wondering, the Woodill Wildfire is a real car from the 1950s. Just felt right to include to be honest because why not.**_

_**We know that Rhaella and Aerys were siblings in the lore, but I just kept things simpler and just have them be unrelated. So for this, please respect the decision I made.**_

_**Anyways, stay tuned for more!**_


End file.
